


To Build a Home

by JupiterRose (TitanShifter94)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Feels, Character Death, Comedy, Dark Comedy, Drama, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Ghost Sex, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Levi (Shingeki no Kyojin) Has OCD, Love, Love Letters, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Murder, Paranormal, Poltergeists, References to Depression, Romance, Sex, Sex Toys, Soulmates, Suicide Attempt, True Love, both light-hearted and dark, will probably make you laugh and cry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:29:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 45,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23269969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TitanShifter94/pseuds/JupiterRose
Summary: "My roommate says our house is haunted.But I've lived here for 200 years and not noticed anything unusual."OrThe one where the living and the dead come together via notes on a refrigerator, and show eachother what it means to feel love.
Relationships: Levi/Eren Yeager
Comments: 95
Kudos: 406





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi Everyone!
> 
> And....well, I didn't plan for this, it just sort of happened.
> 
> I know I have two WIPS and a sequel for another fic to write, but this just wouldn't leave my head and I couldn't write anything else until I did this, I can't explain it! Lets just call this my three-part quarantine crisis fic for the time-being, as i'm currently in self-isolation and needed to get creative.
> 
> This will most likely be a 3 part, MAYBE 4 part fic, and i'm not gonna lie, this will have really heavy moments, some hilarious comedic timing, some romance between a living and dead character and an ending that you may not see coming. But overall, this is a story of two lonely souls coming together to free each other from their loneliness, and it will be a journey!
> 
> This chapter is a little more on the serious side than I would have liked, but it's important to set the scene for the story moving forward and I hope that it interests you enough to continue with me! Any feedback I can get on this would be greatly appreciated, and I really hope you enjoy!

Seven times.

Seven times his roommate has put on this very same movie since she moved in. And each time, she balls her eyes out at the exact same moments and mouths along to the same cheesy quotes as every other time she puts it on. Today is no different. 

The DVD case for “The Notebook” lays open on the table that his roommate Sasha currently has her feet upon. It’s taunting him, laughing at him, and he curses himself for not thinking to ‘accidentally’ throw the stupid thing in the trash before she decided to torture him with its viewing again. But knowing her, she’d probably just buy another copy. 

When she’d first moved in a number of months ago now, she’d unpacked the movie pretty much immediately and spent her first night in their house watching the love story of Noah and Allie unfold. Eren, at the time, had never seen it before, had never seen anything quite like it in fact and had actually rather enjoyed it at the time. He’d even liked it a bit more upon watching it a second time. 

However, by the time the fourth, fifth and sixth viewings rolled around, usually with Sasha stuffing her face with chips, mouthfuls of ice-cream or one time an entire bowl of mashed potatoes between her harsh sobs, Eren opted to make himself scarce instead. He’d amused himself with moving some of her belongings around to different areas of the house just to mess with her, but seeing as she’s a rather chaotic mess of a human being whose life seems to revolve solely around food, snacks, her boyfriend Connie and meals, she hadn’t even noticed anything was amiss. 

That had ruined Eren’s fun entirely.

It had actually taken him knocking a spoon on to the kitchen floor one evening for her to take any notice of his mischievous antics at all. That had been a few weeks ago now, and she had been engaging in what Eren could only describe as ‘lewd conversation’ over the phone with Connie at the time, and he just couldn’t take it anymore. 

Seriously, it was bad enough that the short bald man had practically moved in on a part time basis and Eren was constantly subjected to hearing them go at it in his old bedroom, he didn’t need to hear that too.

Life had been so much simpler back when people had to rely on letters or telegrams to communicate. Even texting or e-mail would have been preferential to Eren in that particular situation. 

Sasha had jumped at the sound of the metal spoon clattering to the floor, and immediately her eyes went wide at the sight of it lying there. She obviously hadn’t seen Eren pretty much tossing the thing there, so she spent a few seconds darting her eyes between where it had fallen from and where it sat following impact and frowned. 

“I swear to God, Connie,” Sasha had said into her cell phone in almost a whisper, “Sometimes I can’t help but think this house is haunted.” 

Eren chuckled to himself then, what a ridiculous thought. The only people currently living in this house besides her were Connie, if only on certain days of the week, and Eren himself. 

And Eren has lived in this house for over 200 years. If the house was haunted by anything other than its unfortunate past, he’d most certainly know about it by now. 

+++ 

People say that a house is always just a house, a shell made of brick and mortar, and only becomes a home when you fill it with life, when it’s abundant with love, laughter and happy memories. 

But that’s not necessarily true, in some cases love can just as easily turn to hate, it can burn bright or it can fade. Laughter can be loud, or it can be concealed, can be appropriate or inappropriate, or sometimes it can turn to tears, and then it can stop entirely. Memories that once made you smile or feel a sense of nostalgia can make your mouth fill with bile and send shivers down your spine depending on the circumstances in which they are remembered. And most importantly, the life that had once filled the house with its presence, just like the building itself can rot and decay over time until it’s no more, nothing but a shadow of a time long since passed. 

This scenario certainly rings true in the case of Eren Yeager. This house has belonged to Eren for as long as he can remember, he’s never felt at home anywhere else in the world apart from inside these walls. He took his first steps as a baby in the room that people now call “The Living Room”- his Mother had called it the Drawing Room when he was growing up - in the place where there is now a large coffee table and what is referred to as a Television. He’d broken his arm on the stairs when he was a child and his Father had scolded him for running carelessly before taking him to the basement to set the bone – he remembers how his father told him how fortunate they’d been to have a basement instead of an outbuilding, the memory still makes him recoil even to this day when he sees anybody heading down there. His bedroom is located on the second floor of the house, the last door on the right, although he supposes he doesn’t really have a bedroom anymore. So many people have slept in that bedroom since he did last. The whole house belongs to him anyway, so it no longer bothers him like it once did.

Eren Yeager had been born in this house, he’d grown up here, he lived here, and he died here. Nothing could make him leave this house. 

This is his home.

+++

Eren has long since forgotten the year he was born, it was 18?? something, but he knows his birthday is on March 30th. He can’t remember the year that he died either, but he knows he was maybe 19 or 20 years old at the time, he is unable to recall if he continued to count after his life had ended or if he hadn’t bothered. His birth certificate was recovered and taken away a long time ago, so it’s not like he could even check. 

He can’t explain what it felt like to die. Just that at one moment he was alive, and then suddenly, he wasn’t. He couldn’t tell you how much time had passed until he realised he was dead, but when he did eventually come to the conclusion, it had actually made a lot of logical sense after what felt like an extended period of sheer nothingness as he roamed the empty halls of his home alone. 

The house is a three-storey with three bedrooms, a basement and a vast library, detached and Georgian style that was built in the mid-1700s that many people who have long since come and gone have described as “Quaint”. The house itself used to be the only one for at least 2 miles in either direction at one point in time, a stone road leading all the way to the nearest town with nothing but fields of grass and wheat all around, with a large patch of land at the back which lead to the forest of giant trees. Eren can remember that people would sometimes show up in the middle of the night begging for his Father’s help after running the entire distance of the road without a horse or cart in complete darkness, as they couldn’t afford to send whatever family member to the hospital. And even though his Father had been a doctor and worked for the hospital himself, he was charitable enough to assist anyone truly in need. 

Now, there are five houses in the area, not too close together – it was a good 5-minute walk to the nearest one - but close enough that they are considered a neighbourhood. The other houses are too different for Eren’s liking, made to look like replicas of his own but somehow only succeeding in making his own look out of place, which is ridiculous considering his home was here first. That HE was here first. 

Back when his Mom was alive, she had been so proud of their family home and often spoke of how lucky they had been to inherit such a beautiful house from his Father’s ancestors. And it is a truly stunning house even now, with its many windows and high ceilings, and although the décor is often changed and it gets filled with contraptions that he doesn’t know the name of until somebody says it out loud, on the surface it’s still very beautiful. But Eren knows it’s dark secrets and what lies beneath, what took place here and what’s been hidden away. And while it’s still home to him, for that reason, he doesn’t think he could ever see the house as beautiful again.

Eren can’t explain how he knows exactly where his body had been buried, he doesn’t remember any of that happening, but the feeling of absolute certainty he has leaves him with no doubt at all. You could say, if he were still alive, he’d be willing to bet his life on it. 

His Mom had died when he was around 17 or 18 of a deadly illness that took the lives of many, she was buried in the local cemetery, and Eren learned sometime after his own death that his Father had hanged himself from a tree deep in the forest behind their house and was now buried alongside her. Eren, however, can always feel the pull of the very spot he knows his body now rests. 

In what had once been the front garden.

‘Had once been’, because it’s no longer a garden…it’s a driveway. A few years ago, or maybe it was a few decades ago…or possibly a half-century ago…Eren remembers a woman in a fancy blue jacket talking to some men in strange hats about renovating the whole front garden into a driveway that leads to the road, a road that was now covered in concrete instead of stone, so that cars could be parked just outside the house. By that point in time, the surrounding fields were long gone and replaced with the other four houses made to look just like this one – other people with similar looking jackets had taken hundreds of people in and out of this house, and told them countless times that the ‘unique selling point’ of the house is that it’s a ‘genuine period building’ - and Eren had seen these ‘cars’ stationed right outside those houses. And those houses didn’t have a garden out front. 

Eren recalls that once the men in the hats had finished destroying the lovely piece of land that was once home to his Mom’s flower beds, he went outside and placed both of his palms over the new concrete, under which his body was now concealed in a solid grave never to be found. And despite never wanting to leave his home and knowing that nothing could now tear him away from where he belongs, he can’t explain why, but Eren had wept like a baby. 

+++

Obviously, the house hasn’t remained empty for all these years, so Eren hasn’t been entirely alone since his death. He’s had many “roommates” since the house was sold following his father’s passing. 

It was a probably around a year later when the Reiss family moved in. The head of the family had been an acquaintance of Eren’s father, so he knew of them and that they used to live a couple of towns over. He also knew that they were wealthy, VERY wealthy, so it had been a surprise when almost an entire branch of the family had chosen to set up their lives in his home of all places. And just like it had with the Yeagers, the house was passed down a number of generations and housed many members of the Reiss family throughout the years.

However, unlike Eren, none have them had stayed behind after they passed away. And it was then that Eren had made the connection between his body being laid to rest here and his inability to leave the grounds. He could make it right to the very end of the driveway at the front of the house or to the very beginning of the forest at the back, but no further. If ever he attempted to leave these boundaries, he would find himself right back where he started or in some random room of the house with no recollection as to how he got there. Sometimes, Eren likes to play a game to see if he can guess where he’ll end up after venturing into the road – he never goes in the direction of the forest - but other than that he makes no effort to try and go any further.

When the original owner of the house had died of old age, he passed the house down to his only son, a man of around forty who married beneath him, falling deeply in love with a beautiful woman who would steal his money and cheat with younger men behind his back. When he grew old, he passed it on to his eldest son Rod, a sleazeball politician with a taste for very young women, young enough that Eren felt the compelling need to throw something heavy whenever he brought a girl home. He then passed it on to his eldest daughter Frieda before she died far too young after suffering a horrible illness, who then passed it on in her will to her sister Historia. 

He’d been introduced to the term “roommate” when Historia Reiss had moved in and used it to refer to a tall, freckled woman named Ymir, who was clearly her lover. Clearly, because Eren had once seen them engaged in activities that he had believed were only possible between a man and a woman. It had fascinated him when he caught sight of it. 

Eren hadn’t meant to look, of course, he was raised to be a gentleman. He was taught from a young age that the matters of women were private and to be left alone until he would one day marry, and from there he would take control over his wife’s affairs, just like his father before him. But once he saw them, moving together against each other’s bodies, he felt like an entirely new aspect of the world was now unveiled to him. 

In the time Eren has lived in this house, existence as he knows it has evolved all around him astronomically over the years, and not just with the house but the people too. He’s learned that the best way to approach this new world is adapting, accepting any and all changes that come with it, and that includes human nature. So, he observed them that one time only, and stored the information away for later. 

It had got him thinking, if in these days, women were able to be intimate with one another in the way he had thought only men and women could together, did that mean two men could do the same? He strongly recalls his father and local pastor drilling it into his head from when he was a child that it was sinful and wicked to lay with another man, a mortal sin, and how he’d constantly tried to remind himself of that whenever a handsome man would catch his eye as a teenager. 

He’d never acted on this impulse when he’d been alive, it would have been unthinkable and no doubt would have destroyed his reputation if it had gotten out, but what if now something like this was commonplace? And if so, that would mean he could possibly be faced with such an inclined person living with him in the future. Therefore, he could put his act of voyeurism down to research, and he could forget about it until it became necessary to recall again.

At first, Eren had thought roommate was a term to exclusively describe a lover. It would make sense, Historia and Ymir had shared a room and were technically ‘mating’ in said room. However, it wasn’t until they had moved out years later and sold the house to a man named Thomas, did Eren actually fully understand the term. 

Another man named Marco eventually moved in alongside himself and Thomas in order to reduce the costs, as they would split bills for things such as food, gas and electricity. They had also referred to each other as roommates, however they did not share a bedroom, and weren’t in any sort of sexual relationship as far as Eren could see, and it’s not like he could have missed it really. 

Therefore, it had dawned on him that the term Roommate actually meant someone currently inhabiting the house as well as yourself, regardless of any existing relationship, so since then Eren has used it for all of his roommates both past and present. 

+++

Eren’s current roommate succeeds in bringing him back to the present when she suddenly pauses The Notebook in order to answer a call. He’s thankful of the reprieve, as he knows Sasha will probably spend at least an hour on the phone chattering away like she always does, usually about food or about Connie. Or if she’s talking to Connie, it will 100% be about food…or sex…or sometimes both. He doesn’t like to think too much about it.

He’s about to tune out entirely and take a wander to the library until a particular statement from Sasha makes his ears prick up.

“I can’t wait to finally be out of here!” She says joyfully from her relaxed position on the couch, “I know we said this could be a forever home, but you’re always away for work and I’m here all alone. It’s just too big of a house, even if we had 5 or 6 kids, I feel like I’d still feel tiny. I just…get really creeped out here.”

Eren can’t say he blames her, the house is big and carries a history that he knows is now available as a matter of public record, even the realtors in their fancy jackets mention it whenever the house goes up for sale and they are showing it to his prospective roommates. It’s one of the reasons the house gets so much interest in the first place. Well, that and the fact it’s apparently a ‘steal’, price wise. It’s no wonder she’d feel small and creeped out here, she wouldn’t be the first to feel that way.

“Yeah, I know we should probably have had people come look at the place, but I’m desperate enough to just leave and this guy was happy to take it without even meeting with our realtor. In fact, I got the impression that would actually be preferable to him.” Sasha continues, answering a question Eren couldn’t hear on the other end, “His name is Levi…something and he’ll be living alone, that’s all I know…Oh I think he said he’s a musician, that’s how he makes his money…I don’t know, jingles or something would be my guess? Must be pretty decent to be able to afford this place without a mortgage…Yeah, seriously.” 

So, Sasha will be leaving pretty soon from the sounds of things, and from the part of the conversation he can hear, Eren imagines he won’t be left alone for very long. Especially not if this Levi person is willing to buy the house in it’s entirety without even coming to see it, he must be very interested in living here. 

And to be fair, even with its marred past and reputation for driving inhabitants away within a short spell of time – especially in recent years – the house does have a hell of a lot to offer. Located practically in the middle of the countryside with only a few other houses in the area and a road that takes you straight into the nearest town, it’s ideal for anybody looking to get away from big city life. Eren has never visited one of these cities of course, but has seen them on TV and read about them in books left behind by his roommates, and knows that they’re not for everyone, and that plenty of people would love to live in a big house in a quiet corner of the world belonging only to them. 

Then again, that’s not to say Levi won’t simply be looking to tear this house to the ground and rebuild something new from its ashes. That happened here before too. A businessman named Nile moved in with his wife, Marie and their children, and while Marie had been taken with the house’s authenticity and character, Nile simply saw an opportunity to make a profit. 

For a while, Eren had been tempted to allow Nile’s plan to go ahead, maybe then he’d finally be able to pass on…but for some reason, he just couldn’t allow it. His plan, originally, had been to drive the family from the house with whatever means necessary, but as it turned out, he didn’t have to. Nile’s youngest son, a boy of around two, had become rather spiritually connected to Eren in a way even he hadn’t thought possible. The boy would constantly look in his direction, as if he could actually see him in the room while everyone else couldn’t, would laugh loudly whenever Eren would mutter to himself in mockery of the child’s own father and would even start talking just randomly and entirely out of context to anything going on around him, as if trying to communicate with Eren directly. 

While the whole ordeal had been rather confusing and remarkable to Eren, he hadn’t been the only one to notice the odd exchanges, and soon both Nile and Marie became too freaked out by their son’s behaviour to want to stay in the house any longer than necessary, and the entire project to demolish the house was scrapped.

Eren wants to hear more and learn as much as he can about his new roommate, but it’s clear that after a few minutes the conversation has turned to something he has literally no interest in, so with a huff he leaves Sasha alone in the living room, left to wonder exactly what to expect when someone new comes to live in his house. 

+++

“Levi! Are you sure this is the place?” The red-headed woman asks, stepping out from the passenger seat of the car as her blond haired companion climbs out the back and follows her to where the raven haired man, Levi, is now standing in the driveway, “We’re smack bang in the middle of fuck knows where?” 

“Yeah, I’ve gotta say, it’s not what I was expecting at all.” The blond man pipes up in agreement, “It’s a little out of the way, for one.”

“That was kind of the point.” Levi says, looking straight up at the house. His friends give each other a quick look of apprehension before continuing,

“I-I just mean it’s an entirely new area. You don’t know anybody who lives around here, it’s almost a two-hour drive…”

“And?” Levi cuts the woman off abruptly, turning to look at her and folding his arms over his chest, “Nobody said you HAD to come out here with me, if it bothers you so much then you can fuck off and leave me be.”

“That’s not…” The woman begins, before trailing off uncomfortably, leaving the blond to continue in her stead.

“I think what Isabel is trying to say Levi, is that you’ll be living so far away, we may not get to see you as often anymore. And it’s not like there’ll be anyone here you can talk to, unless you maybe make friends with some of your neighbours! You could bring them a casserole or actually I’ve heard that in some cultures…”

“Farlan,” Levi interrupts the man’s rambling, “Do you honestly think I’m going to be bringing anybody a stupid, fucking casserole? I’m moving out here to get away from pointless shitheads, why do you think I’ll be inviting any more into my life?” 

Both Isabel and Farlan look a little crestfallen at the statement, and Levi has the good grace to look ashamed by his own words.

“I don’t mean you two idiots, you know that.” Levi tries to re-assure them, “I mean with everybody else…I just need a fresh start, somewhere out of the city where nobody knows my name or who I am or the fact that I’m mentally broken. A place where I can be me, with no need for explanations or apologies.”

“Levi…” Isabel says gently, “You’re not broken, please don’t say things like that.” 

“I’m not going to argue with you.” Levi states, “I brought you both here so you could see where I’m moving to. And you can still come over, I’m not just going to end all contact now that I’m further away.” 

“We know that, honestly we do.” Farlan says and Isabel is nodding her head in agreement, “We were just a little surprised is all. When you said you were leaving the city, I assumed you meant to somewhere just outside, we weren’t expecting, well…”

“Smack bang in the middle of fuck knows where?” Levi asks teasingly, the edge of his mouth raised in a smirk that has his friends laughing good-naturedly. 

“Well yeah!” Isabel responds, “But I must say, it is a beautiful house, from the outside at least.”

“That it is.” Farlan agrees, “How did you even find a house like this?”

“There was an ad online from this woman who seemed rather desperate to sell it.” Levi explains, “I was just starting to house hunt when I saw it, and I thought it had to be some sort of scam, but I was curious, so I emailed her anyway. And it turned out she was legit, got back to me right away and sent me a copy of everything I needed to know. I was in two minds about buying it, it’s a lot bigger than what I had been planning for and quite a bit further away. It’s a real period house and I’ve always admired this kind of style property, but it all came down to the price in the end. It was just too good of a deal to say no to, even if it did turn out to be a fixer-upper it would still be well worth it.”

“Well from the looks of things, it doesn’t seem like you should have too much to worry about. It obviously might be a lot different on the inside and probably won’t meet your…standards…in terms of cleanliness. But I think you can do it easy enough.” Farlan says appraisingly, before continuing, “I wonder why the previous owner was so desperate to sell though.”

“I wondered about that too,” Levi begins, pushing his black-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose with one finger, “Turns out that this house has been bought and sold at least a dozen times in the last two decades alone. She says that the house was just too big and the location too far away from society for her to feel at home, I imagine a lot of the previous owners probably felt the same, not that it’ll be a problem for me to isolate myself from others.”

Isabel gives him a sad look when he says this and Farlan keeps his eyes focused on the ground, not quite wanting to look his friend in the eye. Especially not after everything that’s happened.

“But funnily enough, that’s not the only reason.” Levi states ambiguously, “As it happens, this house actually has quite a vast history dating back to the 1800s. A history that makes the house easy to sell but difficult to stay sold.” 

“Oh?” Farlan ponders at the same time Isabel says, “Do tell!” 

“So apparently, around 200 years ago, there was this guy who lived here. He was a doctor or training to be a doctor, or some shit. Nobody really knows for sure,” Levi recounts the story that had been told to him, “But anyway, something happened to him that made him lose his grip on reality, and he started conducting these experiments down in the basement. Experiments that involved some very unwilling individuals and resulted in multiple murders.” 

“Woah…no friggin’ way…” Isabel gasps, her eyes wide and filled with wonder.

“Yeah,” Levi responds, “The police never even found the people that went missing. Just the remaining evidence of what had been happening along with some of their belongings. And in the end, they didn’t even catch the guy. He just went missing and never returned, as far as the story goes.”

“Levi…do you realise…that you own a murder house?” Isabel asks him slowly, emphasising each word as she says them, “That is SO awesome!”

Levi snorts in amusement at the younger woman’s excited expression, he can tell she’s practically chomping at the bit to get inside, “Well, I knew your deranged ass would enjoy it at least.”

She nods enthusiastically, “Can we go in now? Please, please, please!!!” 

Levi wordlessly retrieves the keys from his pocket and dangles them on one finger. Isabel doesn’t hesitate to snatch them up and wastes no time in racing to the front door to let herself in. Levi simply chuckles and is about to follow her when Farlan stops him, grabbing his arm gently.

“Wait a second Levi,” Farlan requests, his tone soft as usual, “I don’t mean to question you or assume you haven’t made the right decision but, you know I have to check, are you sure this is what you want?”

Levi sighs a little, “As sure as I can be, I guess. It’s a new start, somewhere entirely different and far enough away from my old life to feel almost comfortable. It’s a risk, a choice, and I have to choose the outcome that I think I will regret the least. All I know is that I couldn’t live in that city anymore, not with everything that’s happened there. Too many ghosts…” 

“Funny way of putting it, don’t you think?” Farlan says teasingly, “Considering the house’s reputation. Seriously, try and keep Isabel away from here, she’ll probably try and live in that basement.”

“Tch, I don’t doubt it.” Levi says, before asking, “Do you think I’m making a mistake?”

Farlan shrugs, “I think you have to do what’s best for you. And if that means moving out here and living in the creepy house of death, then that’s what you should do. Even if it means you need to see less of myself and Isabel…we’ll support your decision. You’re important to us Levi, don’t ever forget that. We can be here as much or as little as you want.”

“I appreciate that, Farlan.” Levi says honestly, “I don’t know what I’d do without you both.”

“I’m sure you’d be just fine.” Farlan re-assures, patting Levi on the back as they head towards and then inside the house, “Oh, but before I forget, have you told Dr Zoe about all this?”

Levi nods, “I told her a few days ago, she said she’s happy for me. We have an appointment in eight weeks, she’s coming by and wants to give me time to settle in.”

“Will you be alright until then? That’s quite a wait.” Farlan asks uncertainly, his eyebrows furrowing in the way they do when he’s concerned.

“I’ll be fine.” Levi says, “I have her number and she said I can call if I ever need her before our appointments. Seriously Farlan, I’ll be fine, I’m not a dumb kid.”

“I know that.” Farlan says, “Doesn’t mean I can’t worry about you.”

“What the heck is taking you losers so long!” Isabel suddenly yells from the left side of the house, swinging open a large door revealing stairs that no doubt lead down towards the basement. 

“Tch, impatient idiot.” Levi complains with no real malice and Farlan gives him a grin, “May as well go and see what all the fuss is about.”

They walk towards the basement in silence, listening to Isabel’s excited squeals as she runs off ahead. Farlan, a couple of paces ahead of Levi, heads down next, his blond head of hair disappearing the further down he goes. 

Levi is just about to follow them when he feels a shiver run up his spine, as if someone has just walked over his grave. It leaves him uneasy, but not scared, he’s probably just worked up from all the hype. He’ll be the first to admit, he went a little overboard when it came to researching this place and learning the history of this house and what went on in that basement over two whole centuries ago. The stories of the Yeager family and the deranged man who lost his mind and murdered at least five people, turning their bodies into horrid creations for his own entertainment, bending them to his will and destroying them before disappearing forever. 

The story doesn’t frighten Levi, nor is he afraid that the house is filled with the ghosts of those victims and they’re out looking for revenge. He’s not an idiot. But he must say, he finds himself a little more apprehensive to go down there now that he’s here. It’s almost as if there is a force trying to will him away from the door, begging him not to go down, that there is nothing down there for him and he should just walk away. And he almost does, except he remembers his friends have already went down there without him.

He shakes himself out of his uneasiness, takes a deep breath and without another word, heads on downstairs to meet Isabel and Farlan, and see the dreaded basement for himself.

What Levi doesn’t see however, is the hand held out behind him as if willing the man not to go downstairs, not to subject himself to the horror of what happened there, to tell him to turn around and come back. Even though they never do…

And if Levi were to turn around and walk back now, he would surely see the lily-white shirt and black dress pants of the man standing at the top of the stairs, hand outstretched and beckoning him back, his green eyes lit up in terror. 

The green eyes of the long dead, Eren Yeager.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Everyone and welcome to Chapter 2 of this story!
> 
> First off, I would really like to apologise for the wait on this chapter, however hopefully the almost 10k word update is enough to make up for it!
> 
> Secondly, this chapter is a little more angsty than it is fluffy, and does focus quite a bit on Levi's mental health issues. Just warning you now! However, it is important to the story and is fundamental for the blossoming of Eren and Levi's relationship, because who doesn't love a story where two lonely, lost souls find and help eachother heal? :)
> 
> Thirdly, you may feel like Eren is a little more intelligent in this story than he's normally portrayed in others...remember, he's over 200 years old and had some time to brush up on a few things. But never fear...he's still an absolute dork.
> 
> Please note i'll try my best to not take so long with the next update! Things have just been a little crazy with the whole Covid-19 situation, as i'm currently working from home due to my country being on lockdown, so my writing space is no longer my writing space, just a boring old work space!
> 
> Anyway, without any further ado, please enjoy!

Chapter 2

All things considered, it hadn’t taken Levi an awfully long time to fully make his mark on the house, Eren thinks to himself one day as he peruses the contents of the brand-new music room that’s since been added to their home. Which shouldn’t have been a surprise really, going by the man’s supposed profession.

Sasha had used this space as a spare bedroom intended for guests that would often come to stay over on weekends, as did many of his previous roommates who had little to no use for the room. In fact, the only other person who hadn’t used this room as a bedroom had been Nile, who had used it as an “office” instead. 

Back then, there’d only been a desk with a computer that Nile would spend most of his day typing on or cursing at, and a sort of sofa/bed type thing in the corner that was a horrible orange colour that he’d sometimes sleep on. Nile would often become tired after spending long hours working in this room and then find it too much of an effort to go up one flight of stairs to his bedroom on the second floor - Eren’s parents’ old bedroom, at that – or if he and Marie had been fighting, he’d sleep in this room instead of on the couch in the living room downstairs on the ground floor. 

This room had been boring then, had always been boring, as at the end of the day it was just a bedroom, and a rarely used bedroom at that. Even when Eren was alive and a child there was no reason for him to be playing around or spending any time in this room, there was no essence of life in it at all, just briefly occupied with numerous passing faces, and names he’s long since forgotten. 

Frankly, the room up until this point has been just about as dead as he is. 

Until now, that is.

Now…it’s exquisite. The long, drab drapes are pulled open almost permanently, except at night-time when Levi retires to bed, allowing the sun to shine brightly through the room throughout the entire day, creating a heavenly glow across the heavily polished floorboards and the soft, expensive, cream furnishings. 

The large windows are often unlocked and swung almost fully open, allowing the warm, summer breeze to flow in to the room in wisps that kiss Eren’s skin through his shirt and ruffle his hair in a way that makes him almost truly feel it’s slightly cooler temperature. 

Lined up against the wall at the far end of the room, is a range of instruments that Eren has never had the opportunity to see up close and in person before. There is a violin that looks like it’s been used on many an occasion, yet Eren cannot find even one speck of dirt on it. He thinks that even if there were one, Levi wouldn’t let it stay there for long, knowing him. Next to it is a larger version of the instrument, one which Eren remembers is called a Cello. He’s seen Levi using it a couple of times, as if testing it’s sound before putting it back in its place. 

It wouldn’t be a lie to say that 200 years is a hell of a long time for anyone to roam this world alone, Eren knows that for a fact. But one thing he will say in its favour is that time has allowed him the opportunity to learn so much about life, the people, and their inventions. He’s learned of the existence and purpose of so many different things, plenty of it useless trivia mind you, but nevertheless, he feels like he his knowledge is vast and plentiful when it comes to the human environment.

However, in saying that, spending 200 years in one house despite it’s ever growing library of books, television and access to the internet is limiting, and there are still gaps in Eren’s knowledge that leave him baffled every once in a while. One of these gaps, is currently staring him in the face and Eren has absolutely no idea what he’s looking at.

In a corner of the room, there are three large black boxes with tiny holes scattered all over them that lead to a wall of blackness that nobody could possibly gain access to. At the top, there are ports for cables and shiny silver knobs that Eren can’t figure out the purpose for. The first time Levi used one of these, he had one of the cables plugged into it which was connected to one of his guitars. It had made a dreadful sound at first, but after Levi had turned a couple of the knobs, the sound became a little more bearable, enjoyable even. 

Although, later on when Eren tried turning the knobs for himself, there had been no sound at all. He panicked a little then, thinking he’d maybe broken the strange looking instrument, but Levi managed to work it just fine the next time he used it. Eren has tried to find out what it is on Levi’s laptop a couple of times after the man has gone to bed and not taken it with him, but with no luck and he still has no idea what he should even search for to find out. 

In the very centre of the room is a grand piano that is truly stunning to look at. Just like the rest of the fine instruments that are pristinely presented in here, it looks like it’s been well taken care of and clearly, means a hell of a lot to Levi. Eren suspects it’s probably the man’s most treasured possession.

Back when Levi first fully moved in almost two months ago, he had a couple of men helping him move things in and out of the house from a moving van parked just outside. Eren had seen for himself how Levi had insisted on carrying all of his instruments up the stairs by himself, however when it came to the grand piano, the shorter man had no choice but to let the movers take it up for him.

Eren remembers how Levi had watched them all like a hawk as they manoeuvred it into his music room, biting anxiously at his nail beds as he followed them, barking at them all to be careful or he’d sue their asses every minute it took for them to get the thing into his music room safely. Eren had been afraid they might just knock it against a couple of things out of spite for his attitude, he’d certainly seen a couple of glares and eyerolls coming from the men, and he’d felt an overwhelming need to place his own hands underneath the piano to help support it. 

He doesn’t know whether it was down to the visible stress clearly emanating from his roommate’s tiny form or if it was because of the crappy attitudes of the mover’s carelessly handling Levi’s property – they had already managed to chip one of the man’s wooden side tables, scuffing the floor in the process - but Eren had to make sure the damn thing got into the room perfect and in one piece. And so, that’s exactly what he did.

Eren lets his long fingers drag along the ivory keys gently, not enough to press down and make a sound that would no doubt startle his roommate, but enough to feel the texture of them under his fingertips. He longs to hear their music; he’s always loved the sound of a piano. When he was young, he was taught how to play the harpsichord as his teacher had one he’d brought with him from abroad, but it’s nothing like a symphony played from a piano. 

He so wishes that he could hear Levi play, watch his dexterous fingers dance across the keys and fly over notes Eren didn’t even know existed, to observe and learn from him so he himself can one day play a song or two. But so far, this has been impossible as Levi doesn’t ever touch the piano when in this room, which seems incredibly odd to Eren as it’s the main focal point of the room and is definitely the instrument Levi favours the most. Sometimes when Levi works, he’ll mime out playing a few notes on the piano with his hands in mid-air, before adapting the sound to a different instrument entirely and recording it to send away to prospective clients.

Levi, Eren has discovered, is in fact a composer. However, unlike what Sasha had assumed about his roommate, Levi doesn’t compose jingles…he composes soundtracks. A quick google search of Levi’s name and the word ‘music’ – seriously, how did Eren ever survive without the internet? – had confirmed everything he needed to know about the man. Levi Ackerman, 30 years old and a successful soundtrack composer credited with over 25 original pieces of music used in movies and theatre, and that’s not including collaborations in which he features, or his covers posted online. 

His net worth and relationship status are listed as unknown, but Eren can easily guess the answers to those questions. Considering the facts being that 1) the man was able to buy this house outright without even feeling the need to see it and 2) has currently had a total of zero house guests to his new home, Eren would say that the answers to questions are pretty self-explanatory, being 1) clearly enough and 2) are you kidding?

However, as well as a lack of personal information listed online, Eren can see that Levi hasn’t properly worked in just over a year now. He isn’t credited or affiliated with any pieces of music released this year or even last year. Whether its due to a lack of work or a lack of a need to work, Eren isn’t sure. 

The man doesn’t seem to live very frivolously, aside from his impulse house purchase, at all. The fridge and pantry are always fully stocked with nothing more than fruits and veggies which he has delivered, along with some powder he uses to turn everything into shakes that he remembers Sasha using to lose weight, and Levi CERTAINLY doesn’t need to do that being as small as he is. There is only one TV in the entire house, even though most of his other roommates had one in both the living room and their bedroom(s), with Levi seemingly preferring to watch things on his phone or reading a book instead. Even his car isn’t all that flashy compared to those he’s seen rich people drive in movies before, and so far, Levi is yet to even take it out of the driveway.

In saying that, Levi is yet to even leave the house, full stop. 

+++

When Eren decides he’s had enough browsing around the music room for the day, he finds himself making his way downstairs to the kitchen, where he finds Levi sipping on one of his shakes while watching the news on his phone at the breakfast bar in his pyjamas with a pen and paper in front of him. 

This normally wouldn’t be too notable, except that it’s four-thirty in the afternoon and Levi has only just gotten up. 

This isn’t entirely unheard of to Eren, plenty of his roommates would sleep incredibly late on occasion or not even get out of bed at all if they could help it, but usually it was accompanied by some form of sickness or hangover that would pass within a day or two, that or they had a couple of days off work and were choosing to spend them relaxing. However, this was normally a once in a while occurrence, and not a way of life like it seemed to be for Levi. This is the third day this week Levi has only just emerged from his bedroom well into the afternoon. 

The second day it had happened, Eren decided to pass through Levi’s bedroom on the assumption the man was sleeping, however upon entering it became clear that had not been the case. And probably hadn’t been the case for a while if Eren could tell properly. Levi had been sitting up in bed, his knees up to his chest and was staring blankly into space. 

His eyes were red rimmed and the dark lines under them made it visible to Eren how little sleep the man actually seemed to get at all. A couple more minutes of no movement on Levi’s part made Eren feel a little disconcerted, and in order to try and get any sort of reaction out of the other man, Eren had knocked over the glass of water from the side table next to Levi’s bed. 

The motion itself seemed to make no impact on Levi at all, until a couple of seconds passed and the man gave a few rapid blinks before turning his attention to the mess and frowning at the sight of the broken glass now on the floor. Eren had actually felt a little bit guilty about the action when Levi managed to cut himself on a shard while trying to pick it all up, his guilt quickly turning to concern upon seeing the fascinated look on Levi’s face as he watched the blood trickling from his finger all the way down to his wrist. Eren didn’t have to hesitate before placing a towel that had been just out of reach next to Levi’s feet. 

The next morning had been even worse, as when Eren had entered Levi’s bedroom, the latter hadn’t been sitting motionless like before. This time, he was lying face down on his bed, the duvet thrown carelessly to the floor, and crying hysterically into his pillows. 

Eren had no idea what to do, as he hadn’t at all been expecting to be greeted with such a sight. He thought it best to check up on Levi given his odd behaviour the day before, and Eren hadn’t really wanted to leave the man all alone considering his reaction after cutting himself with the stray glass, the idea left him uneasy for reasons he couldn’t quite put into words. 

All that was left for Eren to do, was to perch himself on the very edge of Levi’s bed and hope that mentally sending him waves of calm would somehow help his roommate in some way. Eren, of course, has the ability to reveal his physical form whenever he chose to do so, but in these last 200 years he’s never felt the need to do that. And in that moment, despite the desperate need to comfort and help that was niggling in the back of his mind, doing so in that particular moment probably would raise more problems than it would solve. Namely, why the fuck there is a strange man in Levi’s bedroom claiming that he lives there too and wants him to stop crying. 

In the end, he didn’t need to physically intervene anyway, as Levi had managed to calm his breathing after a little while and had eventually fallen asleep, his tears staining his pillowcases and his mouth slack against them. Eren could only hope that sending his good thoughts had worked and Levi would now be able to sleep for a while now at least. He then left the room without a word, but not before picking Levi’s duvet off the floor and covering the slumbering man with it.

The lines under Levi’s eyes, while still prominent, don’t seem as dark today and Eren hopes that he has managed to get a decent sleep for once. It only takes a second glance for Eren to realise that Levi actually has a tiny plate of bread next to him that’s cut up into perfect little squares which he dips into a separate cup of coffee before popping them into his mouth one by one. 

Eren doesn’t know why he’s so relieved to see Levi eating proper food, as little of it as there is. Maybe because he’s already such a small man, definitely no more than 5 ft 3 with a rather lean build and the idea of him getting even smaller makes Eren worry for his health. Between his father being one of the only doctors in town, and he himself attending medical school while he was still alive, Eren can’t help but see the worrying signs of someone either starving themselves or having an aversion to food, both being a form of disorder that in his day, would leave people locked up in asylums for long periods of time until they either recovered or died. He’d seen the result of that on a number of occasions and had no real desire to see it all over again.

Levi is so engrossed in what’s happening on his phone, that he doesn’t even realise that the pen laying on the breakfast bar is almost on the edge and bound to fall any second. Without even thinking, Eren quickly moves it closer to the middle with his hand, getting closer to Levi’s back in the process.

“Jesus, it’s fucking freezing in here.” Levi complains, shivering a little before getting up and walking over to close the window behind him. Effectively cutting out the warm breeze coming into the room and blissfully unaware of the actual source of the sudden chill. 

As he does this, Eren catches a glimpse of the piece of paper that Levi had been writing on. There is simply one message written in bold writing that covers the page.

DR HANGE ZOE VISIT.  
TOMORROW, 3PM.  
DON’T FUCKING FORGET.

It’s not uncommon for Levi to leave notes on the refrigerator to remind himself of things, Eren actually thinks it’s rather sweet. Whether it be reminding himself that he’s expecting another grocery delivery or that he needs to pay his electricity bill, he always leaves a little note to confirm it, and as soon as the action is done, it’s discarded immediately. Eren has played with the idea of leaving a note himself a couple of times, just to see if the raven-haired man would notice.

But this is the first time one of Levi’s notes suggest that a visit is to take place, although whether the visit will consist of said Dr Hange Zoe coming to the house or Levi going to them isn’t clear. Eren, however, would bet on the former as its clear Levi dislikes leaving the house for any length of time. Although if it’s for a medical appointment, maybe that would be the exception. 

Once Levi has cleared the breakfast bar and washed his dishes to within an inch of their life, he retreats to the living room with Eren trailing not far behind. Levi switches the TV on, not really caring which channel is on as he just needs some background noise to fill the silence and then heads to the utility room to get his cleaning products. The house must be spotless for his guest coming over, after all.

Eren lounges on the sofa lazily as Levi scrubs every inch of the house from top to bottom. Literally. Eren watches as the man raises the mop upside down whilst standing on his tiptoes to wash the ceiling. Whilst it’s fair to say that Levi is pretty anal when it comes to keeping the place immaculate – like seriously, Eren hasn’t even seen a hint of dust in weeks, and this is an old building – this is going a little bit overboard to say the least. 

Eren can see Levi’s arms straining to reach every spot and his shirt is riding up a little now, just enough for Eren to see a rather unexpected definition to Levi’s abdominal muscles. In a second, he’s off the couch and trying to get a closer look, leaning over to peer at Levi’s skin when he’s close enough. To Eren’s pleasant surprise, Levi isn’t nearly as frail as he’d suspected, even if he’s not as built as he could be. There are definite traces of muscle there and even a little pronounced v at the edge of his hips. It looks good on him…

Eren doesn’t even realise he’s let out a physical breath until Levi drops the mop and kicks over his bucket of water in shock at the sudden, sharp coolness on his bare stomach. 

“Shit! What the fuck?!” Levi yelps in surprise, expecting to see someone – or something – in his general vicinity. 

Of course, there is nothing, but that had felt so…strange. Not even in a bad way, just entirely unexpected. Levi takes a quick glance around the house, noting that all of the downstairs windows are closed, just as he’d thought. The only windows he keeps open throughout the entire day is the upstairs windows and the kitchen window, which he just closed not at all that long ago. With a click of his jaw, Levi puts it down to a random draught, it IS an old house after all.

Eren mentally slaps himself following the encounter. It’s not like Levi had seen him or suspected anything, but really, he could have at least been a little more considerate of his roommate’s rather anxious disposition. Plus, he was acting like a bit of a letch! Which is completely new for him…he’s lived with many a roommate, and aside from that one time with Historia and Ymir, not once has he tried to get a glimpse of any of them in a…less than decent sense. And that had been for research purposes! With Levi…well, he doesn’t exactly know what had prompted him to do that. He puts it down to concern for the man’s health, as he doesn’t exactly seem to maintain a healthy and balanced diet, but even Eren knows he’s kidding himself with that.

Deciding not to get in Levi’s way any longer, Eren parks himself back on the couch and stealthily runs through the TV channels with the very tip of his index finger on the remote when he’s sure Levi isn’t looking, successfully finding a rather interesting ‘period drama’ to watch that seems to be set in a time not unlike the one he’d grown up in. Sure, the costumes are a little off and a couple of the props certain characters use are downright ridiculous, but overall, it’s rather well made and leaves Eren feeling a tiny bit nostalgic the longer he watches.

He becomes so engrossed, in fact, that he doesn’t even notice when Levi finishes up with his incessant cleaning a couple of hours later and curls up on the sofa next to him. Levi doesn’t attempt to change the channel, just sits and watches the TV without any indication as to how he feels about it. He’s either become interested in the goings on in the show - as Eren has somehow managed to get through three or four episodes in the time it’s taken for Levi to be satisfied with the state of his home – or he simply doesn’t care about what’s on as he’s not even truly paying attention anyway.

Eren would have assumed the latter. That is, until Levi comments out of the blue that the main female character is a “stupid bitch” after agreeing to marry a young lord with a rather unfortunate appearance, as the guy in Levi’s words is “clearly only after her money”. It’s a fair assumption on Levi’s part, given the fictional man’s motivations and the lady’s rather high social standing, however this is not an unusual occurrence, Eren thinks. 

Back when he was growing up, many a man and woman simply married in order to obtain eachother’s financial assets. Or namely, so that a husband could gain access to his wife’s financial assets. It was relatively normal, for that’s how it had been between his own Mother and Father, and was of course to be expected of himself given that he came from a good family of old fortune and had been in training to become a doctor. It’s only natural that he would have searched for a wife of relevant agreeability, despite his apparent preference for a more masculine form. That would have been irrelevant, brushed under the floorboards like unwanted dust, and life would go on as expected. 

But Levi didn’t come from that world, from HIS world. Levi lives in the now, and the now – as Eren has found – is full of possibilities, and opportunities, and choices. He’s seen it, and God, does Eren wish he’d had the chance to live in a world like this one. Back when he’d been living in his own time, he’d constantly fretted about how people didn’t LIVE, not really. They existed. They survived. But they didn’t truly live. 

Eren remembers saying to his Mother as a young man how the people in his world couldn’t think for themselves, just went along with the happenings of their world without question. Silently. Complacently. Like cattle being herded just like the ones they themselves bred and raised for eventual slaughter. No opinions of the world around them…no desire to explore, to travel or experience. Simply content in the way things were. Happily herded through their pointless lives until they were eventually led to their meaningless deaths. 

His Mom had reprimanded him for his wicked thoughts in this very room and told him to watch his mouth in future, said it would get him in trouble one day. But funnily enough, she’d never actually outwardly disagreed with anything he said. Eren has to wonder if she herself had similar thoughts, but had been too scared to express them aloud. 

Well, no use in thinking about all that now. What would be the point?

Eren continues watching the show with rapt attention as the episodes fly by, one after the other. He watches how the ‘Stupid Bitch’ sadly prepares for her wedding day to the Ugly Lord, as she clearly pines for the Common Baker Boy she grew up with, watches how said Baker Boy confronts her on the night before her wedding, begging for Stupid Bitch to run away and start a new life with him. He’s on the edge of his seat by the time Stupid Bitch is just about to say her vows to devote herself to the Ugly Lord for eternity, before she ditches him at the altar, running straight out the door, across the field, through the town and into the arms of the Baker Boy she truly loves. And it’s a happy ending, all the townspeople are applauding, and the pair are smiling, and crying, and kissing before they head off into the sunset with the promise of starting a life of their own. One in which they’ll both be happy. 

And it’s then that Eren understands why his world and this world are so different in nature. This world has free will. Complete free will with little to no consequences for a person living a life of their choosing. 

Although it’s a fictional story, the likelihood is that the Stupid Bitch and the Baker Boy – Fuck, Eren really should have remembered their names – would have to face real dire consequences for acting in the ways they did. Despite the fact they were in love, the world they lived in would not be kind to them, not in the way it was shown on screen. But Eren has seen similar stories play out in movies set in the more modern era, and by the looks of things, there really is such a thing as a happy ever after, and it’s purely down to the fact that people in this day and age truly do have a choice on how they wish to live. True, certain people may wish to live by the rules and ideals set by a God or some other form of deity just as he had, but in the end they still have a choice on whether or not they wish to do so, something Eren did not have the luxury of. 

It’s so clear now that he understands it. Everyone, every single person Eren has had the opportunity to live with in his 200 years of death, has had some form of motivation in their choice to live in this house with him. Whether it be love, money, the desire to start a family, a desire to make a profit, a chance to escape or a chance to find themselves…everyone has had a clear reason to want to make this house their own, a part of their lives, a part of them.

Everyone…except Levi Ackerman.

It has already been two months since Levi decided to move into this house and make a life here, and in that two months, Eren has been unable to come up with any clear motivation as why Levi chose to do this. He has no clue what drives Levi, what he wants out of his life, only has a very limited knowledge of his likes and dislikes, and sure as hell has no idea what brought him here in the first place. 

Levi is an entirely closed book…but one that Eren desperately wants to read the entirety of. 

He can’t quite explain why he wants to get to know Levi so badly, he’s had introverted roommates before and held little to no interest in their lives at all. Most of his roommates have been nothing but a distraction for him, one that he can pay attention to until he gets bored or loses interest in them, and in the end they all leave him behind anyway. 

The only other person Eren even had even a remote interest in was Armin Arlert, a college psychology and history professor who lived here for five years until he eventually transferred jobs, and that had only been through sheer fascination of the man and of how knowledgeable he was. Eren thinks he probably learned more about life and human nature in the time he lived with Armin than at any other time in his death.

Eren takes a second to glance over at Levi, expecting him to still be staring at the TV and only half-surprised to find the man resting his head on the other end of the couch, fast asleep with his socked feet almost in Eren’s lap. He takes a second to really look at Levi then, of course he can stare at Levi all he wants during the man’s waking hours and not get caught, but there’s a vulnerability to Levi in his sleeping form that makes it hard for Eren to look away. He just looks so innocent and at peace. It’s an image he’s not at all used to seeing when it comes to Levi, and he hopes it stays that way for as long as possible, heaven knows the man needs his sleep.

Eren doesn’t know how long he stays like that, perfectly still, watching Levi sleep without a care in the world. It’s only when said man starts to shiver in his sleep that Eren decides to take any sort of physical action. He supposes it must be a little colder in here now than it had been this afternoon, with Levi not having the opportunity to heat the house in any way before he fell asleep, it’s no wonder he’s feeling the cold now. Eren considers grabbing a blanket to drape over Levi’s body, but thinks better of it when he remembers that Levi has an appointment tomorrow, and it won’t do for him to have a sore neck after lying on a couch all night. 

So, with that, he makes the decision to carry Levi up to his bed as quickly and carefully as possible, so as not to wake him up. Surprisingly, Levi is quite a bit heavier than Eren had imagined, as he manifests himself into a physical version of himself in order to take his slumbering roommate up the stairs one at a time. Thankfully, Levi shows no sign of waking up any time soon, and by the time Eren reaches his bedroom – the bedroom that was once his own – Levi has tucked his nose close to Eren’s neck, so close that Eren can feel his breath against his skin. It feels rather warm in his physical form, pleasant even. 

As soon as he’s able, Eren rests Levi’s body gently on his bed as best he can without disturbing him, laying his head against the fluffy pillows and pulling his duvet over his body to warm him up. Levi sighs contently as soon as he’s all wrapped up, and Eren can’t help but smile a little at the cuteness of the action. Without any thinking at all on his part, Eren reaches out before he can stop himself, and softly cards his fingers through the longer black locks on the top of Levi’s head. Levi lets out another little noise that suggest he’s enjoying the attention, and Eren is all but grinning as he continues stroking Levi’s head, hoping it will help the man sleep a little easier tonight. 

“I wish you’d show me who you are. I wish you’d let me see…” Eren whispers as gently as he can, hoping he’s quiet enough that Levi can’t hear him through the haze of his dreams. It’s been so long since he’s gotten to use his voice. His real voice.

But Levi is too far gone, too relaxed and deep in his own little word of slumber to be aware of any of his surroundings. So with that, Eren decides that tonight he’s going to take a risk, make a choice of his own for the first time since he was born. He leans over, slowly so not to wake Levi up on accident, far enough so that their faces are almost touching, pressing his lips so softly over Levi’s ear that they ghost over his skin, and whispers,

“Sleep well, Levi. Have sweet dreams.” 

+++

Levi can’t help but feel nervous at the thought of having Dr Zoe in his house for the first time since he moved in here two months ago. Sure, she’d said she would come over for their appointment in eight weeks, but time has seemed to just fly by since then, and suddenly he feels rather unprepared for house guests. 

Isabel and Farlan haven’t shown up since that time he showed them the house. Whether that’s a blessing or a curse, he’s not entirely sure. What he does know is that he could really use some reassurance for what’s about to happen today, because he knows the drill, been through it enough times…but that’s not to say he’s quite ready to go through it all again. 

Whether or not he’s ready to deal with what comes after.

It’s a standard appointment they’ll be going through today, Dr Zoe will ask him all the normal questions and gauge all of his responses as she normally does, and then she’ll follow it up with a therapy session that will have him talking about what’s been going on in his head. 

Levi likes Hange, he really does, but he knows her routine like the back of his hand. He knows what she’s going to ask him, and he knows what to say as he knows what answers she’ll want to hear. But whether the answers he says and the answers that are true are the same…well, that’s another issue entirely. Not that it matters anyway, she’ll know if he’s lying, she always knows.

And with thought, he’s anxious all over again. He’d considered putting the appointment off until a later date, but he knew she’d just get suspicious if we were to do that, and would probably just turn up at the same time anyway. Then he’d be even more unprepared for what’s to come.

Either way, he’s screwed. 

As expected, Hange arrives at 3pm sharp, not a minute early or late. She knows him well enough to know he needs her to be on time. She greets him with her massive grin as he opens the door to let her in.

“Good Afternoon, Levi.” She says pleasantly, and he steps to the side as invitation into his home.

“Hange.” He says simply by way of greeting, she’s become well accustomed to it in their time working together.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” She asks, “Almost 3 months since our last appointment, am I right?”

“Just about.” Levi confirms, standing a little nervously as his doctor actively takes a good look around his home.

“You’ve certainly been busy! This place is magnificent!” Hange compliments with a large beam on her face, “This must have taken you weeks of work to get together, huh?”

Her question seems innocent enough, but Levi knows better. He knows she wants to know how long he’s spent wide awake and scrubbing every inch of the house like she knows he has. This is one thing he certainly hasn’t missed about Hange, her ability to see straight through him without so much as a second glance.

“Tch, wasn’t so bad.” Levi states, “Most of it was already in good enough condition.”

“Yeah, but knowing you, you’d want to make sure it was all re-cleaned anyway, right?” Hange asks with a knowing look, and of course she’s absolutely right.

She’s always fucking right.

Levi decides not to answer that last question, it’s not like it requires an answer anyway and Hange won’t push him for one. She’s a good doctor, she knows when to press and when to back off in equal measure. It’s one of the reasons he’s never considered getting another psychiatrist. 

“Tea? Coffee?” Levi offers, just to have something to do with his hands. He’s not sure his nail beds can take any more damage for a while. 

“Coffee please!” She says, “Just black, no sugar.”

“Yeah, I know Shitty Glasses.” He says, already remembering the way she takes it since the last time he made her coffee. She smiles in his direction, and takes her blazer off before hanging it up on his coat rack. She makes sure the sleeves are completely free of any creases and that the hem is a perfect straight line at the bottom to free Levi of any further anxiety today.

Levi barely registers the fact his hands are trembling as he prepares Hange’s cup of coffee until he feels a cool breeze brush against his back and seem to rest over both of his hands. It’s a weird feeling, but not unsettling, probably just another draught. Either way, he begins focusing purely on the coolness against his skin as he pours the coffee, and amazingly, the trembling seems to have ceased entirely in his distracted state. 

Once the coffee is successfully poured and prepared just the way Hange likes it, he takes it over to her and hands her the cup before gesturing that she should take a seat on one of his comfortable sofa chairs. She happily takes a seat on the singular sofa that sits just adjacent to the two-seater that Levi opts to sit on. 

“No coffee for you today, Levi?” Hange asks curiously, she knows how much he enjoys his coffee.

“Not today. My throat has been acting up a little?” Levi admits, lifting his glass of water he had been drinking before Hange had arrived and taking a small sip, grimacing a little as he swallows.

“Hmm,” Hange hums, considering him for a bit before asking, “Have you had any trouble eating as of late?”

“No more so than usual.” Levi answers honestly, “But that’s not say it’s gotten any better, either.”

“I appreciate your candour Levi, thank you.” Hange says, opening up her big, black notepad and scribbling something down. 

Levi hates that fucking thing, has always hated it with a passion and has been tempted on more than one occasion to burn it. But that would just be counter-productive in the long run. So instead, he simply rolls his eyes and folds his arms, leaning back on the couch and waiting for her to finish what she’s writing about him.

“So in terms of your overall diet,” She begins, before adding, “what would you say is your overall daily food intake? On an average day.”

Levi tries clearing his throat before answering, succeeding only in leaving a painful stinging behind at the action, “Well, normally I have my coffee in the morning, room temperature. I have one of my protein shakes to start the day, and I’ve recently started having a couple slices of bread too. Dry, but dipped in coffee.”

“Like the French.” Hange remarks with a smile, still making notes as he speaks.

“I guess so. Umm, I have some blended fruit at lunch time…them some blended veggies at dinner, another protein shake then too.”

“Have you tried the snack bars yet like we talked about?”

“A couple times, but…they’re too hard.” Levi explains, and Hange nods at him a little sadly.

“Well, from what I can see you’re at attempting to have something every few hours at least. I would maybe want you to try having a little extra before bed though. It’s a long time between dinner and breakfast the next day, especially if you’re still sleeping until late in the day. It doesn’t have to be much, maybe another slice of bread and maybe some milk? Is that something you’re willing to try?” Hange asks, peering over her large glasses at him.

He nods in response.

“Good.” She says, writing that down and then continuing, “While we’re on the topic of sleep, how has that been recently? I understand it might be a little tough in a new environment and all, so I’m not expecting any miracles.”

Levi considers the question before eventually answering, “It was rough to begin with. And…there’ve been a couple nights I haven’t slept at all. But I’ve been getting a good few hours every now and then, last night I slept like a baby. Don’t even remember going to bed.”

Hange nods encouragingly, “That’s good to hear. But let’s talk about those nights where you can’t get to sleep. What do you do then?” 

“When I can’t sleep?” Levi asks, “Well, sometimes I just lay in bed, either trying to coax myself into sleeping or I’ll just…think for a while.”

“What kind of things do you think about?” Hange asks without missing a beat.

“I don’t know, Glasses…about my music and shit, I guess?” Levi says uncertainly.

“Are you asking me or telling me, Levi?” 

Levi blanches. She’s on to him. Of course he thinks about his music…he loves playing, he truly does. But more and more recently it’s been more of an afterthought. He can’t even remember the last time he felt any true inspiration to compose. Before everything happened, surely…

“I guess not as much as I once did.” Levi admits, “It’s not been so much of a priority as of late. I’ve been more concerned with getting this place together to be honest.”

“Does it give you anxiety?” Hange asks, “Knowing there are things for you to do and that you can’t do them all at once?”

“Honestly? No.” Levi answers, “Not as much as it once would have.”

“And why do you think that is?” 

“It…it doesn’t…smell as bad here…” Levi says, struggling to fully get the words out.

“Can you tell me why that is? Can you tell me what it smells like here?” Hange encourages, hoping Levi won’t close himself off from her now, not when he’s being more honest than he’s been in a long while.

“Cleaner.” Levi clarifies, “Less heavy. It’s not exactly…nice, but…it’s not like it was before.”

“Okay, and what about under that clean smell?” Hange presses, “Can you still smell…”

“I always smell it, Hange.” Levi snaps, “It NEVER goes away…but it’s…less so here. I don’t know why.”

“Good, that’s good Levi!” Hange tells him, “It’s progress, and you should be proud of that!”

“Be proud of what?” Levi sneers all of a sudden, his next words sounding so sour that he practically spits them from his mouth, “Be proud of the fact that I’m no longer smelling the scent of dead bodies rotting in my house? That I don’t have to bleach every single inch of my home 24 hours a day in order to stop smelling corpses like they’re right there in my living room? That every time I breathe now, the smell isn’t making my eyes sting, or my skin stink or my throat burn like I can taste it?! That I don’t have to shower five times a day or brush my teeth every single waking hour? Am I supposed to be happy about that?!” 

Hange is silent then, not saying a word until she’s sure Levi has let it all out, the feelings and emotions that had been bubbling inside him finally being released after so long. Once she’s certain he’s finished, she chooses her words carefully before asking,

“Is that why you drank the bleach? Not because you wanted to end your life, but because you wanted the taste to go away?” 

Levi says nothing to that. In fact, he’s silent for so long that Hange isn’t sure if she’s touched a nerve she should have left well enough alone. She considers back-pedalling, going down a completely different question route in an effort to make him forget that she’d even ask when suddenly, he leans forward, giving her a little, rueful smile as he does so, and says,

“And what makes you think it wasn’t just a matter of killing two birds with one stone?” Levi asks.

Hange doesn’t answer, knows better than to answer, so she ignores that question and starts off in a new direction.

“How do you think your pills have been working recently? You have been taking them?” She asks, eyeing her notes from the last time she prescribed him medication.

“Well enough, apparently.” Levi answers, his smile gone, “And yes, of course I’ve been taking them, just like you ordered.”

She feels a little better at least, hearing him say that. 

“Good, I’ll write out another prescription for you. Have you visited your local pharmacy yet?” 

“No, I umm…” Levi starts, visibly uncomfortable, “I haven’t really…had the chance to explore town.”

“Levi, it’s been what? Two months since you moved here. Have you been into town at all since you moved in?” Hange asks, a curious brow raised in Levi’s direction.

“Not yet, no.” Levi answers, not looking anywhere near Hange when he answers.

“Do you have any plans of going at all?” 

“In my own time.”

Hange sighs, knowing she’s not about to get a better answer, so instead she tries another tactic.

“Levi, have you left the house at all since you moved in?” 

“Does the backyard count?” Levi asks, deadpan.

“You know it doesn’t.” She says immediately, expecting this answer already.

“Well…then no.” He says honestly, there really is no point in lying to her.

Hange sighs again, taking even more notes in that notepad – seriously, Levi suspects she must have about a hundred of them, she never seems to run out of space, no matter how much she writes. He’s pretty sure he most likely takes up an entire one of this notepads on his own, maybe more.

“We’ve talked about this, Levi.” She says, sounding a little disappointed, “You know it’s no good if you completely cut yourself off from the world, you tried before, remember? Look at how that ended for you. And moving home is an especially stressful time, you should be trying to reach out, trying to make new friends, you know?” 

“I don’t need new friends.” Levi insists, “I already have Farlan and Isabel.”

Hange freezes the second the words are out of his mouth. She can’t help but feel a little sick hearing him saying that so calmly, after everything they’ve worked on together. Hange knows that in her profession, it’s inappropriate to have favourite patients but she can’t help it. She likes Levi and she wants him to get better…she needs him to get better…or she’d never forgive herself. That’s why her next sentence is one of the hardest she’s ever had to say to him.

“Levi…listen to me…” She instructs carefully, hesitating before dealing the devastating blow, “Now you know, as well as I do, that Farlan and Isabel aren’t real.”

And there it is, out in the open. There’s no way she can take it back now…he has to face it, has to deal with it. She can’t take it back…no matter how much she may want to.

To her surprise, Levi is rather calm following her statement. He’s not screaming at her, cursing her out, or punching the walls, or crying uncontrollably…all previous reactions he’s had every time she’s had to remind him that his best friends in the world don’t exist…that they never existed at all. Instead, he simply takes a long, deep breath and begins to speak.

“I know. They’re not real. They’ve never been real. I haven’t forgotten.” Levi says, entirely calmly, “I know they only exist in my head. I know it’s the Schizophrenia that causes me to see them, hear them…I’m not stupid, and I HAVE been taking my meds.”

Hange breathes a deep sigh of relief, one that’s cut off as Levi continues,

“However, even if they aren’t real, I still see them. They still talk to me. They still help me. They’re always there, whenever I need them the most, I don’t even have to think about calling for them…they just appear, just like they always have. It doesn’t matter if they aren’t really here, standing in front of me or you, they still live on inside me…how can you tell me they’re not real then? When I can see them just like I can see you sitting right there in front of me?! How can I know that you’re the one who’s real?!” 

Levi screaming now, he’s off the couch in a fit of rage and holding his hands over his ears as if blocking out the sounds around him. He can barely hear Hange talking to him, pleading with him, asking him to calm down…everything is too fuzzy…too much for him to handle…he can’t breathe…he can’t think. 

He feels like he’s free-falling, with no idea of how he’s going to land safely…until he feels that familiar coolness wrapping around his whole body this time…not just against his back, or on his hands, no…he’s fully engulfed in it. It feels nice…it’s grounding…and the longer he stays wrapped up in it, the more he feels himself being brought back down to Earth. 

He lets himself sink into that wonderful coolness for just a little bit longer, he feels safe in it, protected almost…and just as he thinks he may fall asleep, he feels his shoulder being shaken and a familiar voice in his ear.

“Levi, please! Stay with me! I don’t want to have to call for an Ambulance.” Hange pleads with him, and it’s all he needs to be brought back to the present. 

“N-No…Shit specs…No ambulance…m’fine.” Levi insists, stuttering a little as his breathing slowly returns back to normal.

Levi can see Hange visibly sag with relief when he finally answers her at least semi-coherently. She can’t help but feel a stab of regret in her chest, she’d trusted her own judgement and Levi’s words when he said he was ready to leave the hospital…maybe he wasn’t ready, perhaps she’d let him leave a little too soon, and now it was all her fault that he’s now left in this situation.

“Stop fuckin’ overthinking, Four Eyes.” Levi says, pulling her out of her stupor, “I’m fine…honestly…just n-nervous and took a bad fucking turn.”

Hange isn’t so sure, “I don’t know Levi…Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing in trusting you. You’re still not fully well, and I don’t know if you’re truly ready to live in this big house by yourself…”

Levi pales, and his expression turns into that of pure anger, “So what are you saying, Hange? You don’t trust me? You wanna lock me up again and leave me to rot in the mad house this time? I won’t let you do that to me…not again…you hear me?! I’ll fucking die before I let you put me back there!”

“Levi…please…”

“GET OUT! Get out of my fucking house!” Levi bellows, “Go on! Out!”

Hange is quickly scurrying to collect her notepad, her bag and jacket before she turns back to Levi one last time with the saddest expression on her face that Levi has ever seen.

“I’m sorry Levi…I’ll come back and see you in a few weeks…and we’ll see where we go from there.”

She’s gone before Levi can even tell her to leave again, and as soon as the front door bangs behind her, Levi is on his knees…full out sobbing on the cold, hard floor. He registers there is a hand resting on his shoulder, and while it doesn’t feel like it belongs to either Isabel or Farlan, he finds he doesn’t care, he could do with the comfort either way.

It’s several hours later when Levi locks himself in his en-suite bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror as he contemplates in his life choices. He’s fucked up in the head, he’s fucked up his life beyond repair, he’s fucked up before, and now he’s fucked up again…and just like before, they’ll come to take him away, to try and fix him, to imprison him and forget all about him when they realise there’s nothing they can do to make him any better. 

And just like that, the smell is back…it surrounds him, covers him, he stinks of it…the corpses…he can see them now too…a myriad of bodies dismembered and sewn back together to make one big mess of what used to be a whole person…that’s what he sees when he looks at himself. A monster…an abomination…something disgusting…

And he just can’t take it any longer…he needs that smell to be gone…forever.

+++

“….evi….Levi…

“Need you to…’ke up! Please…don’t….”

There are words being spoken, he can hear them, but at the same time he can’t. He knows he’s being spoken to, but he can’t make sense of it. He can hear a voice, but he doesn’t recognise it. Can see the most beautiful pair of glittering, green eyes…eyes that he’s never looked on before. And the last thing he remembers, is five little words, before he falls asleep again…

“I have…to know you.”

+++

Over the next little while, Eren doesn’t know what he can do to make Levi settle down again. He’s already lost track of the days it’s been since the man has said a word or even picked up an instrument. He’s not acting at all like himself, and Eren can’t think of anything he can do to calm him down.

There’s no schedule, no plan, no structure left in Levi’s miserable life.

Since the night Dr Zoe left their home, Levi has been wandering mindlessly around the house with no end goal in sight. It’s as if he’s lost all grasp of his humanity, is nothing but an empty shell with no soul left inside, and honestly, it’s terrifying the fuck out of Eren.

He already had no idea what to do in this situation.

Currently, Levi is somewhere upstairs in the house, in which room Eren couldn’t say but he’s making one a hell of a noise as he moves around. Which reminds Eren, Levi hasn’t been cleaning like he usually would, and there’s no more notes on the refrigerator either. The last one that had ever been posted was the one reminding Levi about his appointment with Dr Zoe that day...he’d ripped it off that same night after she left, and since then nothing has been the same. 

It does give him an idea though…a bit of a crazy one at that…but if he can somehow get through to Levi and help him get back to normal…then he’s willing to try it.

Seeing his roommate in such a horribly sad, angry, tormented state that day his doctor had been here had been a real eye-opener for Eren. Levi wasn’t well…Levi had never been well in his time living in this house…Levi hadn’t been well in a very long time. To think he’s been here, acting as a simple bystander, as the small man had carried such a burden on his shoulders…and Eren had done nothing…somehow, it doesn’t feel right to him. 

He knows he should just try and stay out of Levi’s way, let him come to terms with things on his own…but for some reason, he just can’t. He can’t leave Levi alone right now, more importantly he doesn’t he WANT to leave him alone, which is even more of an odd thought. He can’t leave Levi to deal with this all by himself, when he could be helping him through it…and just like that, he knows what he has to do. 

Without any more hesitation, Eren grabs the little bundle of sticky notes on top of the refrigerator and begins to write on one, thinking for a second about what he’s even going to say. It doesn’t take too long however, and soon enough, Eren is ripping the note from the pile and sticking it firmly on the middle of the refrigerator door. The yellow of the sticky note standing out like a beacon against its grey background. 

Eren is prepared to wait however long it may take for Levi to come back down to the kitchen and see the note sticking there, hours, days, maybe even a full week? But no, the universe has something a little different in mind, as within a few minutes after the note has been stuck and left there by Eren, Levi wanders into the kitchen. 

When Levi enters the room, it’s as if he’s looking for something, but has absolutely no clue what it is he came in for. Whether he’s forgotten what it is or simply can’t find it is uncertain going by the expression on his face, but it doesn’t last long, as soon enough the smaller man has caught sight of the little yellow note on his refrigerator. 

In a couple of strides, he walks over towards the fridge, unsticks the note from the door and reads it to himself, his brow furrowing deeply as he does.

Hello Levi,

You don’t know me, but I’ve been watching you for some time now (in a completely non-creepy way of course!) and you look as if you could really use a friend!

Let me introduce myself! My name is Eren Yeager, and I’ve lived in this house for over 200 years. 

What’s your story, roomie?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANNNNNND let the fluff begin!! 
> 
> From here on out, it's all aboard the friends to lovers train! And we'll get to see a bit more of the cuter side of the two, and obviously the hotter aspects as well, as I can't leave that out! Haha.
> 
> To clarify Levi's condition, he has Schizophrenia along with OCD tendencies that stem from his need to be clean, as well as depression. His Schizophrenia causes him to hallucinate, and he's invented friends Farlan and Isabel in order to help him "deal with" his illness. He also constantly smells a stench of rotting corpses, which causes his need to clean and be clean, it also led him to drink bleach which is why he can't eat a lot of solid food. The smell is important to the story, and i'll be keen to see if anyone can guess why. 
> 
> Stay tuned! And please let me know what you think :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello Everyone and welcome to Chapter 3!
> 
> One thing i'd like to address before we get started is that, you may have noticed, I've removed the number of chapters this story will have. Now that's been a conscious decision because I genuinely don't know how many chapters it's about to take to finish this...although it won't be many. I just didn't want to spend time trying to write massive chapters just so they'd fit my chapter count. Because so far it's taken me ages to update this story and I've found it more difficult to write more than one at once. Splitting the chapters up ever so slightly will mean faster updates and more content!
> 
> Secondly, you may or may not have noticed that I've delved into the world of BNHA, so if you're a fan of that fandom, feel free to have a quick browse of my most recent works :) 
> 
> So in this chapter it's important to note that Eren has the ability to make himself visible and invisible at any time he wishes, and regardless of what state he's in, he's perfectly capable of physical actions of any kind. And we also delve a little more into Levi's character...and not to give too much away, maybe pay close attention to the way Levi words things in his narrative...you may realise something important.
> 
> Fun fact: For this chapter (and story in general tbh), I would highly recommend listening to Only if for a night by Florence and the Machine. Or in fact, To Build a Home by The Cinematic Orchestra, as that's the song this fic is named after of course :)

Chapter 3

Levi finds himself gaping at the note that was left on his refrigerator for an unquantifiable amount of time, deciding to read over it again just once more to make absolutely certain he understands correct.

It reads,

‘Hello Levi,

You don’t know me, but I’ve been watching you for some time now (in a completely non-creepy way of course!) and you look as if you could really use a friend!

Let me introduce myself! My name is Eren Yeager, and I’ve lived in this house for over 200 years.

What’s your story, roomie?’

To Levi’s relief – or discomfort, he’s not quite sure yet – the words have not changed in the slightest, and appear to him on the blank post-it note just as they had when he’d originally caught sight of it and had read them for the first time. At the very least he’s not entirely delusional, he now just has to consider the facts.

The rational part of Levi’s brain is telling him the explanation to all of this is either one of two possibilities, those being that either 1. Someone has snuck into his house and is specifically trying to mess with him or 2. He is going through a rather strange episode of psychosis and actually is going completely insane.

Neither of those options are very appealing to Levi, for one, if someone has actually managed to break into his home, he’ll have to check if anything’s gone missing. The most expensive of his instruments would be a bitch to replace considering their rarity, but everything else can be found pretty easily and is covered by his insurance anyway. However, the very idea of someone entering his home uninvited and touching his things makes him feel rather itchy under his skin, and the urge to scrub everything clean just to be sure is only a little short of overwhelming him entirely. 

However, this option doesn’t seem all that likely to Levi when he really thinks about it, he makes sure to keep all of his doors and windows locked at night, which means someone would have to physically break their way into the house. And after spending the good part of a whole year in a mental institution where he constantly found himself having to sleep with one eye open, the idea of someone being able to make the amount of noise necessary to force their way in without waking Levi doesn’t seem all that viable, not impossible but at least not very likely. 

Whilst it’s not totally unbelievable that this is all one of Levi’s hallucinations and he’s simply in a state of unexpected psychosis, Levi knows he’s been keeping up with his medication recently and can’t remember a day where he’s forgotten to do so. Levi doesn’t EXACTLY recall taking it, but he just knows he hasn’t missed a day yet, he’s such a creature of habit – and let’s be honest, compulsion - that any deviation to his schedule would cause him such sheer discomfort and anxiety, that he wouldn’t be able to get it out of his head. 

And besides, his delusions are normally restricted to visions of Isabel and Farlan or a distinct smell that keeps him awake at night and uneasy during the day. This would be an entirely new kind that he’d no doubt have to inform Hange of, and he is definitely not ready to have that conversation after what happened when she was here.

The less rational side of his mind, as small as it may be in this situation, is suggesting that maybe neither of those scenarios is the correct one and that there could be a teeny, TINY possibility that the entity who’s written him this note may actually be telling the truth. 

Levi takes the time to think this over. This is an old as fuck house, one that people have definitely been MURDERED in, no less. Maybe he hadn’t been completely wrong to have his reservations about moving in back when he did his research. 

He’s never been an arrogant enough person to dismiss the idea of some kind of afterlife, he just hasn’t given it all that much thought. Well, that’s not entirely true, he’d once thought maybe he’d been given the ability to talk to the dead when he’d heard both Isabel and Farlan’s voices for the first time, and when THAT smell had first hit him…but that was quickly disproven when he’d been formally diagnosed with Schizophrenia. 

‘It was all in your head, not messages from the dead’, he’d been forced to regularly remind himself.  
He’d also briefly contemplated the idea of possibly going to hell when he considered taking his own life, both in and out of the hospital, but soon came to the realisation that no hell he could conjure up in his mind could be any worse than the one he’d been forced to live through on Earth anyway. 

Levi is still mulling over his thoughts when he notices that in the time it’s taken him to rationalise what in the absolute fuck is going on, another note has been stuck to the fridge.

‘I can see you panicking Levi, please don’t. I know this is a lot to take in but I’m telling you the truth I promise!’

Levi blanches. Well that’s theory one out of the window at least, he thinks. Now he’s just left with the possibilities of having a house that’s being haunted by a 200-year-old ghost or his meds aren’t working and he’s going crazy, in this instance he’s not quite sure which is worse. 

On the bright side, at least he won’t have to clean the entire house all over again…maybe just half of it instead. 

He runs through his options in his head for several seconds before ultimately deciding his next move, picking up a pen from the breakfast bar and writing two words underneath Eren’s latest message.

‘Prove it.  
– L’

He doesn’t know why he signs the note, it’s not like it could be anyone else responding to what he assumes to be a spirit, especially as they seem to know him by name. Levi takes a quick peek at the prior note and checks over the name written there, 

Eren Yeager.

It seems familiar to Levi somehow, like he’s seen it, read it or heard it somewhere, although he can’t seem to remember where from. It’s a nice name, he notes, he can imagine it belonging to a young, handsome, European man with refined tastes, deep dimples and a fondness for classical music…or maybe he’s simply projecting his ideals on to the first person that’s willingly struck up a conversation him in over a year. 

‘Get a grip Levi’, he thinks to himself. This is wayyy out of his league. A new note appears in no time at all.

‘On the staircase up to the first floor, third step from the top, you’ll find a large dent on the edge just to the right. That’s from where I fell running and broke my arm when I was a kid. There was also a scuff mark on the floor where I landed too, I think it’s still there.’

Levi doesn’t have to check; he knows exactly where Eren is talking about. He thought the stair had been dented when the home movers had been taking his piano up to the music room, he’d been livid of course and had to check the instrument over numerous times before concluding there was zero visible damage. That hadn’t stopped him sending a rather strongly worded complaint to the company via both email and hand-written letter, mind you.

He’s also been meaning to order wax for the floor to cover the very scratch Eren is referring to, despite knowing even then that the mark must have been there for a rather long time, although now the thought of erasing it completely feels a little wrong on some level. Which is rather ridiculous, as in theory, plenty of houses have had residents who have died whilst living in them, and normally he’d be racing to get rid of anything even remotely related to those unfortunate bastards.

It’s an entirely different ball game however when said previous resident claims they still live in your house and is having a whole goddamn conversation with you about it. 

Levi suddenly finds himself wishing he were going insane for once; it’d be so much easier to comprehend all of this shit in his head if that were the case. He picks up the discarded pen and writes a further note underneath Eren’s.

‘Big deal, anyone can notice a huge fucking dent in the staircase and make up some bullshit story about what happened to the floor. Give me something tangible, something no one else but you would know, and I’ll consider talking to you properly.

Otherwise I’ll get an exorcist out here so fast, you won’t even have a chance to feel your own balls burning straight to hell.

– L’

He’s not quite sure how he knows Eren is a man, he just…does. Whilst it’s true the name does have a more feminine ring to it, he can’t help but feel like he’s talking to another man. The hand-writing is no more than a scrawl, almost childlike or like Hange’s when she writes out his prescriptions, the language used and past tense of ‘when I was a kid’ suggest he’s speaking with a grown up of some sort at the very least. The response comes a mere few seconds later on a new post-it.

‘Well, we wouldn’t want that now, would we? 

Let’s see, well there’s an antique dresser in your spare room, it’s real heavy and was here when you moved in. It belonged to a woman named Frieda who used to live here over a century ago and has been in that room ever since.

Frieda used to collect little china dolls from abroad, but I saw her drop one behind the dresser sometime before she died. She never noticed it was missing and no one else knew about its existence.

It should still be there.’

Levi furrows his brow as he checks over the details of the note - surprisingly not struggling to read Eren’s shitty handwriting without his reading glasses – and he immediately knows which dresser Eren means. It was much too heavy to shift very far, but he managed to shimmy it out a little when he was moving things in. He rather likes that dresser, and can see why so many of the residents decided to keep it. 

Without hesitation, Levi takes the note from the refrigerator, careful not to crumple it in his hand as he exits the kitchen and heads for the staircase up to the bedroom on the second floor. He gives the first set of stairs a glance over as he reaches the dented section Eren had told him about, shivering slightly as he thinks about a small child falling down this steep ass staircase and breaking his arm upon impact at the bottom. He shakes himself out the thought and continues up to the second floor where he finds his spare room. 

It’s a rather large room, could even have been the master bedroom at one point, and beautifully decorated in floral patterns with a large king-sized bed in the middle, a mint green chaise lounge full of cushions sitting adjacent to the bed and on the opposite side of the room, the very dresser that Eren has directed him to. 

Levi clenches his fists at either side of his body, taking a large, deep breath that makes his nostrils flare slightly before he lets it out incredibly slowly, finding his resolve in the long exhalation of breath and making his way over to it. 

Levi lets his fingers trace over the lightly dusted wood for a moment, contemplating a little on how he should probably give it a good clean before the day is out, then tugs it roughly in his hands and pulls harshly in order to move it towards him. Even with his higher than average strength and his hidden away muscle, it’s still quite the challenge to even dislodge the stupid thing.

Shaking out his hands, he rolls his long sleeves up to his elbows and pushes his hair back before grabbing hold of the edge of the dresser once more, pulling it even harder toward himself this time. It takes a good number of tugs, but it eventually gives a little, just enough for Levi to kneel on the floor and peek into the dark little space between the back of the dresser and the wall.

His eyes need a few seconds to adjust to the dark, but the longer he looks, the more objects he can make out. There’s a rather ornate looking hairbrush lodged behind the thing, the little bristles covered in old, matted hairs that’s pretty fucking disgusting. A small, round object that Levi discerns as a marble - the kind some kids would play games with - has somehow also found itself back here with, surprisingly enough, what Levi recognises as a couple of individual condoms still in their wrappers. 

He doesn’t even want to think about the expiry date on those things.

There isn’t much else back here despite quite a bit of dust and he’s almost about to give up and find his thin duster, the kind that can fit into this type of narrow crevice, when he spots it. The miniature porcelain doll Eren had told him would be here, wedged upside down just behind the hairbrush, all in one piece and showing only the tiniest hints of age, the only giveaway that it’s been stuck here for quite some time. 

Levi is slightly tempted to try and find a way to fish it out and restore it, but ultimately decides not to move it out of fear or upsetting any other spirits that may lingering around. Eren seems to have been forthcoming enough, but that’s not to say that others will be as friendly. Frieda must have died here, Eren had said ‘before she died’ not ‘before she left’, what if she doesn’t appreciate people disturbing her things? 

What the fuck even is his life right now?

It’s odd, just this morning he’d been living with the blissful ignorance of not knowing his house is in fact haunted by a spirit that claims to be over two centuries old…and now he’s actually trying to work out how many of these spirits actually do occupy his home…it’s all a bit strange really, and that’s probably the understatement of the millennium. 

Pushing the dresser back into place, a fete much easier than he’d been anticipating, he dusts off his hands and knees with a few strokes of his palms before leaving the room. He closes the bedroom door behind him with a scratchy click and rushes back down the stairs with a slight spring in his step as he reaches the kitchen. 

Upon his descent, Levi realises he left Eren’s last note on top of the dresser and is in no mood to go back into that room - which admittedly feels rather creepy to him now – so is about to get the pen to write on a new piece of paper when he’s startled by what he sees already awaiting him on his refrigerator.

Eren’s note, the one Levi had left up the stairs, is already back where it was originally placed. 

It’s slightly creased, so Levi knows for a fact he took it with him when he left the room, which means the only viable explanation for why it’s suddenly back on the door of his fridge is that Eren followed him and brought it back here after Levi left it behind. 

Levi doesn’t even realise he’s shaking until a new note appears just below Eren’s last.

‘No need to be scared, I’m not going to hurt you Levi.

Did you find what you were looking for?’

Levi can almost hear the slight smugness in the question as he reads it back to himself, Eren knows Levi found the doll, so why he’s acting like an unsufferable brat about the situation is beyond him. He’s not sure what the ghost or whatever the fuck he is gets out of this, but Levi certainly doesn’t wish to be toyed with in his own home any longer. 

With a scowl, Levi picks up the previously forgotten pen and angrily writes out his response.

“Fine. The doll was there, like you said.

Now if you’re not here to scare me, do you mind telling me what the fuck you DO want?

– L’

The note that follows is not what he’s expecting at all, and is nothing more than a simple statement.

‘You know, you don’t have to keep writing. I can hear you.’

On some level, Levi knows that those last four words should really have shaken him to his very core, but for reasons he himself can’t even comprehend, he isn’t scared at all. Instead, he’s just incredibly pissed…pissed enough to shout at the top of his lungs.

“Well then tell me! What the fuck do you want, asshole?!” 

Levi is panting harshly, equal parts frustrated and angry as he waits for some sort of answer…some evidence that he hasn’t completely lost it after all and that this is actually his fucking life, that he’s really standing here waiting to get a response from a ghost…and that said ghost is actually listening out for him in return. 

He’s just about ready to scream in sheer vexation when he sees the response appear before him, updating on that little yellow piece of paper right in front of his very eyes. As soon as the writing stops, Levi wastes no time in snatching the post-it from its place and reading it several times over, his brows furrowing in confusion as he does.

‘I want to know everything about you.’

+++

“So you haven’t told me yet, what’s so fucking fascinating about me anyway?” Levi asks the open air from his place on the couch. He’s lying on his back, his legs hanging over the end of the armrest and socked feet swinging lightly as they fail to touch the floor. 

They have been communicating like this for quite a while now, Levi voicing his thoughts verbally as Eren writes his down for Levi to read back to himself. Levi was adamant that as he’s at a clear disadvantage, he wouldn’t allow Eren to ask any real questions until he’s satisfied he knows enough about his new-ish “roommate” – as Eren had put it – to trust him. 

Not that Levi really plans on trusting Eren, per se. He’s learned not to trust anyone in his life.

So far, Levi has learned that Eren is in fact a male as he’d suspected, was around the age of 19 or 20 when he died but apparently can’t remember the exact year, and had been training to be a doctor while he was alive. It’s not a hell of a lot of information to go off, but Levi can understand why Eren isn’t too keen on sharing much more at this point, so he doesn’t press too much on it.

Eren’s answer appears on the notepad Levi had laid out on the coffee table next to him a couple of minutes later.

‘That’s a hard question to answer, but I’d say probably because you’re so difficult to read.’

Levi can sort of understand that, he guesses, he’s often been told in his life that he’s pretty much a closed book, a mystery to a lot of people in his need for privacy. And despite his many attempts to get people to back off for that very reason, if anything it just makes them want to know even more. It’s a bit of a Catch-22, and not one that Eren is invulnerable to either by the sounds of it, as despite being dead he’s just as curious as everyone else is about him.

But to his own surprise, Levi finds that he’s just as curious about Eren in the exact same way.

“Tch, you sound like the male lead in every fucking chick-lit book ever written.” Levi complains but with no real bite, “How many more of you are here by the way? Just know that if they’re anything like you, I want nothing to do with them, one of you is quite enough.”

Levi lets the question hang for a little until the notes are updated with Eren’s response.

‘Wow Levi, I hadn’t pegged you for the type of man that’s read enough chick-lit to know about that kinda stuff.

And by “more” of me, I’m assuming you mean the dead? Luckily for you, there’s just me here.’

That surprises Levi to hear, he’d expected Eren to be one of the oldest considering how long he’s been living here but he’d thought there would at least be a couple more wandering around if they’d passed away in this house. Isn’t that how this shit works? He supposes he should probably ask about that.

“Seriously? Just you? That must be lonely as fuck.” Levi comments, and it’s not a shock to find that Eren’s note comes back a little quicker this time.

‘It’s not so bad. I get a lot of company when people come to live here with me.

It’s not like they know I’m here or anything, but it’s nice all the same. 

The house feels a little more alive with people in it, you know?’

Levi ponders this, but he can’t seem to wrap his head around it, the idea of enjoying strangers letting themselves in and out of your house like they own it, touching all the things that once belonged to you, getting rid of all your stuff to make room for their own…it sounds like a form of torture to Levi, so much that he can’t help but grimace at the thought. 

“Can’t say I’d agree with you on that one.” Levi comments, “Doesn’t it just feel like a violation? Having people take over your home like that? Like what I’m doing now…”

Eren’s note comes through just as quickly as it takes Levi to finish speaking.

‘It used to, I’ll admit. 

It was hard to watch people go through my belongings, my bedroom, my parents’ bedroom. To watch them call the home my family had built for us, theirs. But it became easier over time. 

I didn’t even flinch when I found out you were moving in, I’ve been through it enough times now to know what to expect.’

Levi can understand Eren’s logic, although it does leave him wondering, while this is obviously a brand-new occurrence for Levi, has Eren ever done this before? Does Eren try and reach out to everyone who comes to live here? Is that why so many people have come and gone in the last few decades? Do they finally settle in and then suddenly they’re landed with a big, friendly poltergeist? He can’t say he’d blame the majority of them for running for the hills.

To Levi’s surprise, there is already a note waiting for him before he can think of what else to say.

‘No, this is all new to me too. It wouldn’t do for me to go around revealing myself to everyone who comes to live here. Back in my day, they’d lock people up for saying they have spoken to the dead, that or accuse them of witchcraft. 

Either way, the outcome was never pretty. So no, I’ve never tried to connect with anybody else, just you.’

It’s slightly embarrassing when Levi realises he’d been thinking out loud before, but that’s soon put out of his head as two very different feelings come to mind following Eren’s note. One being that he should feel offended at the fact Eren sees him as the easy option, someone that wouldn’t be taken seriously if he were to cry ghost, given the background of his mental state. Eren says people were locked up back in his day, Levi has no doubt the same thing would happen to him if he were to open his mouth about any of this. 

The other, more potent feeling is of satisfaction that he’s the only person Eren’s actually tried to reach out to in all these years. He doesn’t know why it makes him feel almost happy and just a little giddy to find that out, it’s not like it makes him special or anything, but regardless the feeling is there and he’s not about to try and quell it. Eren is talking to him, wants to talk to him and only him, so Levi decides he will indulge him.

If only out of courtesy for the fact the dead man is allowing Levi to live in his house at all…or so he tells himself, at least. 

“I’m from the city.” Levi begins suddenly, “But I grew up in a small town just like this one, so it wasn’t a huge transition to move out here. It’s almost like coming home in a way…not that I’d ever think about going back there. That place was just full of good for nothing idiots and assholes that couldn’t mind their own business. Looked down on my Mom for being a single parent and me for being gay, like they were any better, half of them had marriages full of infidelity or kids who were junkies and living on Mommy and Daddy’s money. Best thing I ever did was leave that shitty suburb.”

Eren doesn’t interject, allowing Levi to speak out about his feelings freely and without interruption. Aside from the revelation of his sexual preferences – which Eren most definitely stores away for later – he can’t help but notice the contradiction that laces Levi’s words. He speaks of moving here like it’s a positive thing and likening it to his old home, but from what Eren can gather, Levi seemed to have hated that place. 

He supposes it’s kind of like his own feelings of home, in a way. Eren can’t help but feel safe here, and honestly couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would take for him to leave…but at the same time, he despises this house’s existence, the memories made here are painful and this once ‘dream house’ had most definitely turned into a nightmare. 

But, at the end of it all…it’s still his home.

Levi continues, “I moved to the city when I was 18 to go to college. I got in on a music scholarship and then stayed out there to work when I graduated. Mom was so proud that I was managing to make a good life for myself, we didn’t have an awful lot when I was growing up, it made her so happy that I even had the opportunity to go to college. We would never have been able to afford it if I hadn’t gotten my scholarship.” 

Eren notes how content Levi sounds when he talks about his Mother, and can’t help but feel the hint of a smile pull at his lips, he knows how much he loved his own Mother…how much he still loves and misses her.

“Unfortunately, she died of cancer before I graduated.” Levi reveals suddenly, ”It took her pretty quickly, so she didn’t suffer much. Still sucked though.” 

Eren gets the impression that it did more than “suck” as Levi put it, but he fears running the risk of Levi closing up entirely if he tries forcing more information out of him. So instead, he does the only thing he can think of. Empathise.

‘I’m sorry to hear that Levi.

I lost my mother too, so believe me when I say I know how it feels. She died of a horrible plague that killed a lot of people back when I was alive. 

No matter how much time has passed, I still love and miss her every day.’

Levi’s face seems to soften ever so slightly as he reads Eren’s note back to himself. He folds it up and places it back on the table next to him. 

“Must be even worse for you.” Levi says sympathetically, “Being stuck here for this long. They always tell you when you when you’re young that you shouldn’t be too afraid of dying. That when you die, all of your long-gone friends and family will be there waiting for you. This must have been a bit of a bummer.”

Eren giggles a little at that statement, truthfully he’d never thought of it that way before, and he tells Levi so. 

‘When I was growing up, it was more about making sure you’re doing the will of God at all times. Spreading his holy message and acting as one of his modern-day disciples, blah blah blah.

I was never quite sure how beating kids half to death when they couldn’t recite specific passages of the bible was ‘doing God’s work’, but what do I know? 

Maybe that’s part of the reason why I’m here.’

Levi picks up the note to read it once Eren is finished, letting out an amused, albeit unattractive snort as he reads it. 

“Sounds like you weren’t exactly a stranger to one of those beatings yourself, huh? Your Mom ever hit you back then? Mine wasn’t that opposed to swatting me with one of her slippers if I was being particularly shitty.” Levi asks, before continuing, “But damn, I hadn’t even thought about how different things must have been for you back then. This must all be a bit of a mind fuck for you, considering how things have changed since then.”

Eren quickly responds with,

‘I’ll admit I was a bit of a rascal when I was young, then got into a bit of a rebellious stage in my teen years. Never anything off the wall, just skipped out of classes or snuck out of church with friends on the odd occasion. Don’t know why I thought I could get away with it though, my parents always found out in the end anyway.

Mom was never one for hitting, although she liked to clip me by the ear every now and then. My Father was a bit more liberal with his cane, however. All gentlemen used a cane back then…and he definitely liked to use his.

You seem to forget that I’ve lived in this world for far longer than you have Levi, I’ve learned to adapt with the times. So much has changed since I died, this town, the technology, even how people speak. But I’ve had a lot of time to read, watch and learn.

Some things do still baffle me though, like those things in your music room for instance. Those big, black boxes with the holes in them?’

Levi takes the time to scan Eren’s note, reading through the scrawled handwriting until his brows furrow in confusion at the last part. It takes him a minute to rack his brain in his attempt to figure out what Eren is referring to, when it hits him.

“My amps?” Levi asks, “That’s the only thing I can think of. Hang on”

Levi quickly grabs his cell phone, typing something into the little search bar and holding up the phone over his head. Eren cranes his head from his spot on the floor, next to the couch where Levi is sitting to look at the pictures on the screen, his widening as he writes down his next note.

‘That’s them! What do they do? What are they for? I’ve never seen instruments like those before.’

Levi chuckles a little when he sees what Eren has written, he supposes the amps would be a rather confusing item if you’d never come into contact with them before. And seeing as there was never a music room in this house before now, it’s no wonder Eren’s never seen one before.

“They’re not instruments.” Levi explains, “You plug certain instruments into them, and the amps help them make sound. It has to be a special kind of instrument though, like you can’t just plug a piano or whatever into it.”

Eren asks, ‘Well, how do you know what kind of instruments you can plug into them?’

Levi sighs, “You have to buy them special. They’re called electric instruments. It’s usually guitars, but there are others too. You mainly use them if you want to create a specific sound you can’t get on regular instruments.”

‘Okay,’ Eren writes, ‘But how do they make the sound? How does it work?’

“Jeez kid, I’m not going into the whole damn thing. I did sound engineering back in college, I don’t need a reminder. You’ve lived long enough, ever heard of Google?” Levi asks sarcastically, slightly regretting it as no doubt he’ll be asked to go into the ins and outs of the internet. He doesn’t think he has the patience for that right now. 

Eren perks up at that, ‘Yes! I use Google all the time. It’s my favourite! It’s like a huge library that has every book ever written inside it. It’s amazing.’

Levi frowns at that. He’s half wondering if Eren is messing with him, so he asks, “Wait, how the hell do you know about Google?”

Eren wonders if he should lie, but concludes that for the sake of maintaining his and Levi’s relatively new-found trust, he should be as honest as possible where he can.

‘Uhh, well I…may or may not have used your laptop a couple times. 

Some of my other roommates had computers and laptops, I’ve used those too.’

The look of shock on Levi’s face is a picture, and Eren can’t help but find it funny…luckily Levi can’t hear him laugh, or else he’d probably be in all kinds of trouble. 

“What the fuck?! You used my laptop? When the fuck did you…how did you even get in? It’s password protected! Unless…unless you watched me type it in and copied me or some shit…even then, how do you even use a laptop? You’re a fucking ghost! Shouldn’t you like…phase right through it?” Levi asks, struggling to reach an explanation he can comprehend in his head.

‘It was easy enough to read your password over your shoulder, I learned to do that a couple of roommates back. I only ever use it when you’re asleep…and don’t worry, I don’t look at any of the pages you were on before me. Even if they are right there when you open it…

By the way, there’s a TV show I’ve been streaming, and I’d really like to continue watching it if you wouldn’t mind letting me still use the laptop. 

And it doesn’t work that way for me. I can still pick stuff up and move things around. 

For example…’

Levi doesn’t even get the chance to feel a little embarrassed about what Eren may have seen on his laptop, as a small pillow from the other couch is picked up and thrown directly into his face. 

This causes Levi to bolt into a sitting position and clutch at his chest in shock. He’d just about gotten used to talking to Eren like they were pen pals or something, he certainly hadn’t expected a sudden, physical altercation to take place. He hadn’t even realised Eren could do something like that!

There’s a name for entities like that. Poltergeists. He tells Eren so, and the latter asks for the correct spelling so he can search it on Wikipedia later. 

Levi doesn’t complain about Eren using his laptop again.

+++

Ever since Levi moved in, he’s had a morning paper delivered to his home every day except on Sundays. And up until recently, those newspapers had always been left in his mailbox. 

That is, until his papers began to appear on his doormat instead. He’d opened up the front door one day, expecting to head over to his mailbox to collect his paper along with any letters he may have received – not that there ever were any, all his bills are mailed online – before returning to the kitchen to read with his coffee. 

However, as soon as he’d opened his door that one morning, he saw that his paper was now resting on his door mat. The date was correct, so he knew it was the right paper, but he hadn’t expected it to be there. It was rather jarring to say the least. Not that he’d complain about the convenience of the paper’s new drop off location, it was of course much easier than trailing all the way out to the front of the drive to pick it up, but he’d received no notice on this change prior.

It would have been nice to have received proper warning so that he could mentally prepare himself for the change. 

He’s gotten used to it however, and now he simply picks it up each morning, turns on the TV – as he knows Eren likes to watch those crappy morning shows, and currently could be anywhere in the house – and reads it while he checks for any new notes on the refrigerator. 

A new post-it reads,

‘Hanging out in the library and have your laptop. Will be down to speak soon.’

Levi and Eren have been exchanging notes for quite a while now, and much to Levi’s surprise, he finds himself looking forward to finding a new post-it first thing in the morning. It gives him a reason to get up early these days, rather than spending all day in his bedroom.

He’s also glad for the warning that Eren is not in the same room currently. The first time he’d attempted to contact Eren first after their original encounter had been rather embarrassing to say the least. Levi had spoken out loud several times and awaited a response, only to come up empty for the good part of an hour.

Of course, he immediately assumed he had in fact been losing his grip with real life and fell into a deep depression, 

1\. Because it had seemed like everything that happened up to now was all just a part of his imagination.  
2\. Because he had potentially just lost the most interesting conversationalist – and company - he’s had in a very long time.

He remembers he’d suddenly felt very lonely all of a sudden.

However, as it turns out, Eren had just been hanging out in one of the rooms upstairs and hadn’t heard Levi talking until the man was already despondent and almost entirely cut off from reality, just blankly staring into space. Eren had tried desperately to bring Levi back from whatever world he was currently residing in, and out of fear he’d lose Levi forever if he didn’t say something,

He’d made himself appear physically for the very first time.

Eren had only physically manifested a couple of times over the years, never for very long and never in front of another person. It was new, and it made him feel a bit uneasy, but it was what Levi clearly needed at that time. Tangible proof that this was really happening, and that he wasn’t losing his mind.

Since then, while they still exchange their notes each day, Eren makes the effort to appear to Levi in his physical form as much as he possibly can, just to continually remind Levi that what they have is real. That Levi is okay. That he’s not alone anymore. Not while Eren is with him. Not ever. 

Levi doesn’t really know how to describe what he’d expected Eren to look like, but one thing he can say is that he had been surprised…Eren is almost completely, and nothing, like he’d first imagined. 

He knows Eren had barely left his teens by the time he’d died, but considering the fact he’d been training to be a doctor and had come from such a conservative, pious upbringing, he wasn’t quite expecting Eren to look so boyish and unkempt. While his white shirt, black pants and black shoes are clean and neatly presented, his hair has grown past just his ears and looks like even a million brush strokes wouldn’t be able to tame it. It gives him a rather rugged and sexy appearance that Levi isn’t sure what he should do with.

Eren has since explained that when he died, he’d been training at the local hospital for long hours and was almost never at home, leaving no time to cut his own hair into his usual, neat style, and it was still too short to tie up properly. Leaving him with this shaggy mess of a hairstyle for all eternity. Levi wasn’t sure if he’d been allowed to laugh, but Eren’s cheeky smirk had told him it was okay in not so many words.

So he did. In fact, they both did.

The most surprising thing about Eren, however, is the two beautiful shocks of green that he has the nerve to call eyes. Levi isn’t entirely convinced the colour is completely his own, and there’s not some supernatural forces at work…surely no one in the world could have eyes as stunning as those. Levi finds himself getting lost in them far too often for his liking. 

Which brings him to the most important point about Eren’s physical appearance…in that the young, dead man is insanely attractive. Annoyingly so, in Levi’s opinion. And as wrong as it feels to lust after a freaking spirit, Levi can’t help but be drawn to Eren’s tanned skin, strong arms, toothy grin and athletic physique. It’s like someone has taken all of the things that Levi finds irresistible in a man, clumped them all together and wrapped them in the bow that is Eren’s sarcastic attitude and dorky personality. 

It’s a lethal fucking combination. 

‘Speak of the devil and he shall appear’, Levi thinks as Eren makes his way into the kitchen, his laptop in hand. The younger gives him a bright smile as he enters the room and sets Levi’s laptop down on the breakfast bar next to him.

It should all be rather to strange to Levi, having a poltergeist happily wandering around your house willy-nilly, borrowing your laptop and smiling at you like you’re the best thing he’s seen all day. But oddly, it’s not strange at all. He can’t recall how long this has been going on now, but he does know that he’s gotten rather comfortable with this particular set up, much to his own surprise. 

“You finish those movies I told you to watch?” Levi asks, as Eren leans against the wall on the other side of the room.

Eren nods, “Yeah, I’ve just got one more to go, but seriously Levi? A lot of them are way off. Like, really over the top. Is that really what people think happens when you die? They actually buy that bullshit?” 

“Tch, well I’m very sorry Mr Expert, but not all of us have first hand experience when it comes to crossing over to the other side, so to speak.” Levi remarks, and Eren gives him a strangely nervous look while rubbing at the back of his neck self-consciously. 

Ever since Eren had told him about his love of movies – all different kinds, both old and new – Levi has taken it upon himself to find Eren the most iconic, frightening, nail-biting and shocking horror movies of all time (not that any of them actually frighten Levi ), that are primarily centred around paranormal activity of course. Paranormal Activity, for example, had been one of Levi’s suggestions – the first one actually wasn’t that bad, in Eren’s opinion. 

“Either way,” Eren continues, “I liked quite a few of them, although I don’t think Horror is really my Genre.” 

“That’s ironic.” Levi deadpans, “What do you like then, kid?” 

“Action, definitely Action. Or a good Thriller.” Eren responds, choosing to ignore the fact that Levi calling him ‘kid’ is highly inaccurate for a many number of reasons. 

“Why? Cause you’re getting no action or thrills in your life these days?” Levi asks, flipping the page of his newspaper without even looking at Eren.

“Bold of you to assume that I have a life.” Eren sasses, examining his nail beds before moving near to where Levi is sitting and flopping down on to one of the stools lazily, his long legs stretched out while Levi’s feet barely even touch the ground.

Levi scowls at him in annoyance, “You’re an idiot.”

Eren gives him an actual shit eating grin and relaxes himself on the stool, completely loose-limbed and carefree. Levi briefly wonders what it must be like, not feeling so highly strung and sore all the time, not having tense muscles or the aches and stresses of getting old. It must be incredibly freeing, and it’s suddenly no wonder why Eren looks like he’s resting on a cloud most of the time. He’s not in physical pain, he’s comfortable. 

Levi is desperate to know what that feels like. 

“So, what do you want to do today?” Eren asks, his elbow on the table and chin resting on his palm as he looks directly at Levi with those big, green eyes. 

Levi shrugs and sets his paper down, “You’ve been doing well learning the Piano keys, wanna try some more advanced stuff? You used to play the harpsichord right? It’s helped. Your muscle memory seems to be all there, I’m sure you’ll pick it up in no time.”

As much as Eren would love to watch Levi playing his Piano and get his own chance to learn more today, that’s not exactly the type of activities he’d had in mind.

“I was actually thinking something more for you today.” Eren clarifies, tilting his head to look at Levi’s confused expression.

“Me?” Levi questions, “Why on Earth would you care about what I wanna do? It’s not like I’m the one that’s stuck here everyday with hardly any entertainment. You said you want to learn the Piano, so that’s what we’ve been doing. I’ll do whatever you want to do, unless it involves watching one of those shitty lifetime movies you seem to like so much, I’d rather stick a cactus up my ass than be made to go through that crapfest.”

“That may be true,” Eren says, “Except you’ve been living here for quite some time now, and not once have you left this house for anything more than your newspaper. And from what I can see, even then you don’t do anything, you haven’t even used your instruments except to show me how to play the Piano. Come on Levi, there must be SOMETHING you’d like to do here today?”

Levi considers this for a few minutes, it’s probably true that he hasn’t been AS active with his instruments as of late, but surely he must have played something recently? There was that time when…no, but what about when…or when he had…huh? 

Fuck, he really hasn’t been playing his instruments. Not in recent memory at least.

Levi REALLY doesn’t want to go outside. He doesn’t say anything to Eren, but lately he’s been feeling such a massive sense of panic at the very idea of leaving the house, like he literally can’t even bring himself to think about stepping outside the grounds. He has no clue as to why this is happening, but he for sure knows he’s not about to go anywhere anytime soon, even if Eren tries to force him outside, Levi has no intentions of letting that happen. 

However, in saying that, he can’t help but feel that while he can’t stomach the idea of leaving the house…recently, he’s been inexplicably drawn to the mysterious basement at the bottom of his house. He’d visited it briefly when he moved in, but it’s almost like a distant memory now, and he can’t seem to shake the feeling that he needs to be back down there for some reason. 

It’s with that thought in mind that Levi tentatively asks,

“Would you come down to the basement with me?” 

it’s at that very moment, that Eren feels his whole being shudder like he’s been electrocuted. And from that second on, there is only one thought on his mind.

Eren cannot let Levi go anywhere near that basement. 

“Levi…” Eren begins, his voice soft yet unwavering, “Believe me, there’s nothing for you down there. There’s no reason for you to go anywhere near that room, and if you have any sense, you’d lock it up and throw away the key. Burn it for all I care…just please, promise me you won’t go down to that basement okay? I’m begging you here.”

“Eren!” Levi interrupts, his palms outstretched, “Calm the fuck down, you sound like you’re about to shit your pants. Just, take a second, god damnit.” 

Eren does as he says, closing his eyes and trying – but ultimately failing – to settle his hands and stop them shaking. He hadn’t even realised he was still capable of such a natural, human action and by the looks of things, neither had Levi, as the man is raising a wary eyebrow at him.

“Eren…what the hell has gotten you so scared? It’s just a room…” Eren says nothing to answer Levi’s question, causing Levi to roll his eyes slightly and move to get up from his seat, “Well, if you won’t tell me then I’ll just have to go down there and see for myself.”

“NO!!!” Eren yells, grabbing Levi’s waist and all but forcing the man back down into his seat. 

“The fuck?!” Levi exclaims, “What the…what’s wrong with you? Why don’t you want me to go down there? Why does it frighten you so much?”

Levi’s raised eyebrow and questioning stare tell him clearly that if he refuses to answer, then there’s nothing he’ll be able to do to stop Levi going down to the basement. He can’t let that happen yet…it’s not been enough time. 

So, by bracing himself and taking another deep, calming breath, Eren steadies himself for just a moment and finally lets out the words that have been haunting him for the last 200 years…even if they aren’t the entire truth. He just hopes Levi will one day understand…

“You can’t go down there…because that’s the place where I was murdered.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what happens next? Did you suspect Eren had been murdered or that he'd died in the basement of the house? 
> 
> Also, anyone have idea why Eren is being so secretive all of a sudden...and what he's not telling the truth to Levi about?
> 
> As always, thank you so much for all of your comments and show of appreciation of this story. It's so appreciated, you have no idea.
> 
> Stay tuned!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Everyone and welcome to Chapter 4!
> 
> I am so sorry this took so long to upload, but I will be completely honest and say that this was because I ended up getting involved in a brand new fic that has taken up a lot of my time and attention, as well as the fact that this story is incredibly heavy in terms of it's content, it takes me a little while to flesh it all out. But I'm back and I hope you'll enjoy the newest update!
> 
> WARNING: This chapter does contain a lot of gore and references to murder/torture, as well as mental health issues that could be triggering for some. It's also a very important chapter to Eren's background and is integral to building Eren and Levi's trust with each other.
> 
> See the end notes for this chapter's fun fact!
> 
> Please enjoy!

Chapter 4

“So this is where you were buried, huh?” Levi asks, sounding surprisingly calm as he stares down at the section of concrete where Eren knows his body had been laid to rest. He’s visited this spot enough times in his existence to memorise it, even if the pull to this spot hasn’t dulled for even a second since his death.

Luckily Levi’s car hadn’t quite been parked over it, or the smaller man may have freaked out just a bit - it’s not exactly every day your new (sort of) ghost buddy suddenly tells you his corpse is somewhere under your feet. But Eren doesn’t need to know that he’s feeling a little rattled, so he keeps his expression as cool and collected as usual.

“Mhm.” Eren nods, looking straight down at the patch of land that was once filled with greenery and flowers in such vibrant colours that he can barely make himself remember their true, unquantifiable beauty. 

“Shit…” Levi murmurs almost to himself, and Eren doesn’t think he’s about to add anything more - What the hell could he even say in this situation? - before Levi asks, “What happened to you?”

Eren says nothing for a few moments before shrugging his shoulders and peering up at Levi’s glossy, grey eyes, “Does it really matter?”

“Well, considering there’s no mention of your death anywhere in the public record of this house, and I think I would have been informed if there was a known burial ground under where I keep my car, I would say that it does in fact matter. Also it’s clear you didn’t move yourself from the basement to the front yard…which means that whoever did this to you, for some reason didn’t want anyone to find your body. I know that there were others killed here, that’s not new information, and as far as anyone is aware, all of their things were recovered. Every one of them accounted for, except you. So I’ll ask again…what happened here?”

Eren sighs, dropping his gaze and looking everywhere except at Levi’s questioning eyes, “Why do you care?”

Levi grunts in indifference, “Well, aside from the fact that this is my house now too and I have a right to know what the hell went on here that led to you being killed…for some goddamn, unknown reason you seem to want to help me out or whatever, so let’s call it a common courtesy brat. Look, if you don’t want me to pry into your life then fine, but you have to learn to leave mine alone in return!”

“But Levi, yours is important! Mine isn’t…it’s ancient history. You…you still have a chance to find happiness and contentment here, I don’t. That’s the difference. That’s why I want to help you, you don’t have to do the same for me. I’ve come to terms with what happened, and I can accept that there’s nothing I can do to fully understand why it turned out the way it did, you don’t have to depress yourself with all of that. It’s not fair for me to put that on you when you’re doing so well Levi.”

“And what if I want you to lay it on me? Don’t I get a say in that?” Levi asks in exasperation, “Did you not even stop to think that maybe I might care about how you’re feeling too? That maybe you fawning all over me is suffocating and maybe i’m sick of sharing my fucking life story all the damn time? You know enough about my life, but I know very little about yours…how is that fair, shitty brat? How is it fair that you have all the answers you want, but I have to keep guessing?”

Eren’s neck snaps up at Levi’s words and his emerald eyes widen is surprise, “You…care about me?”

“That’s what you took from that?!” Levi yells out, clearly annoyed, “You know what? Don’t tell me, do whatever the hell you want. I’m done sharing if you’re not willing to do the same.”

Levi has turned around and is already walking away, when Eren holds out a hand and calls out, “Wait Levi! I’m sorry, you’re right, that’s not fair on you at all. I’ll tell you anything you want to know…it’s just hard, I’ve never spoken to anybody about any of this, and up until now it’s only even been me who’s known everything about what happened here. I’ve never even said any of it out loud, this is brand new territory for me. I’m not trying to push you away, I promise. I just want you to be happy, and I’m not sure how that’s going to be possible when you know the secrets of this house.”

Levi stops and sighs, he hates the fact that Eren is able to tug on his heartstrings and make him feel like he’s the one in the wrong so easily, all he has to do is bat those damn eyelashes and Levi is done for. But he knows he isn’t being unreasonable here, he has every right to know what happened in these walls and about Eren if they are going to be here together for the foreseeable future. And despite what Eren says, he doesn’t actually think there’s anything that Eren could say that would make Levi want to leave this house or his side.

He feels unexplainably safe here…safer than he’s felt in a hell of a long time. 

Safer than when he’d been locked up in that mental hospital for over a year and nursed back to health after attempting to down an entire bottle of bleach, and been force-fed numerous cocktails of different meds to try and silence the voices and smells at the forefront of his mind that he could swear were real, as sure as he was alive. 

That had been without a doubt the darkest time of his life, darker than when his mother had died and left him all alone in the world with nobody to turn to except his made up friends, and he had no intentions of re-visiting it for as long as he lived. But he had shared it with Eren some time ago…so surely it was only fair that the favour was returned?

Levi turns around slowly and scowls at the spirit in complete silence, prompting Eren to speak out once again.

“Please Levi, let me make this right…just don’t give up on yourself.” Eren begs, “On me, on us, or whatever you want to call this. You deserve better than rotting away in this house…don’t be like me. I’ll tell you anything but…please promise me that you won’t dwell on it, that you’ll let it go and focus on yourself after everything is said and done. That’s all I ask.”

‘I don’t want you to be lost to the horrors of this house’ is what Eren wants to say, but decides this is probably taking things a little too far considering how tense the situation has become. 

It’s not that Eren doesn’t want to confide in Levi, of course he does, but he also knows how easy it is to get caught up in the past, how tempting it is to go looking around for just that little bit more and Eren doesn’t think Levi is ready for what he might find. He could lose him altogether…and Eren isn’t prepared to do that. He knows he can’t keep Levi from being curious, and is fully intent on allowing Levi to find what he needs to eventually…but for now, he just needs a little more time. 

Levi stares at Eren for a few seconds more, allowing the physically younger man to squirm a little before he finally relents, “Fine, but you have to be honest with me, I don’t like being lied to Eren. Even if you think I’m not going to like what I hear, I want you to tell the truth and don’t hold anything back. You got it?”

Eren nods his head immediately in assent, relieved that he’s been given another chance. He doesn’t want to ruin this friendship he’s built up with Levi, the understanding and the bond they have created means more to him than the smaller man could ever understand. After being left alone for so long, it’s hard to put into words how good it feels to be given permanent company, and the last thing he wants is for that to be taken away suddenly…especially not since he’s began to feel things for Levi that he didn’t think were even possible anymore.

Nevertheless, he decides it best to keep that little fact under wraps for now. 

“Whatever, let’s just go into the house or something. I haven’t met any of the neighbours and they might want to talk if they see anybody out here.” Levi grumbles, and Eren chuckles at the look on his face. 

Despite how well they get on and how easy it is for them to talk to each other, Levi most definitely is not a social creature of any kind, it’s truly extraordinary.

“Hey, why don’t we sit in the backyard instead? It’s a real nice day out, too nice to be spent inside at least. Whaddaya say?” Eren asks gently, and Levi huffs, not overly caring where they spend time as long as Eren keeps up his end of the agreement.

“Fine! I don’t care, stop trying to stall and let’s get on with it!” Levi complains, and Eren mentally high-fives himself for being able to get the shorter, grumpy man to agree to spend some time outdoors for once. Not exactly an easy feat by any stretch of the word.

“Okay, then let’s go.”

+++

“It was 18-something, and I had not long finished up at the hospital for the holidays. It was Christmas Eve actually, I remember that as I was heading home to meet my father before we were supposed to head out for midnight mass. I know that I was annoyed, and slightly angry at the time when I was walking back to the house. I was finishing up one of my studies and was trying to present my ideas to my mentor Hannes…you see, I was trying to become a doctor who specialised in brain sickness at the time…although now I think it’s more commonly called mental health.

It was an incredibly new idea and belief that some of the actions and symptoms some people developed over time that were then deemed wicked and satanic, could actually be a type of illness that stems from the brain and were potentially treatable. A lot of the patients who were considered “weak-willed” and had “allowed the devil into their beds” were locked up for the rest of their lives and most of them ended up dying after a while. The town council, and majority of the more esteemed medical professionals at the time had deemed their deaths an act of God.”

Levi shifts uncomfortably at that statement, thinking of how he could have just as easily been lumped in with those poor bastards if he had been born in another time. It’s not even worth thinking about how many people with mental health issues probably died unnecessarily because society couldn’t understand them.

Eren continues,

“I had just finished conducting a study on some patients who were at the time showing clear signs of hysteria - or what would now be known as anxiety - and wanted to present my findings to Hannes, I can’t remember what the conclusion had been but I did find that there were some triggers that were upsetting to more than one of the people I worked with, and they expressed similar reactions based on different stimuli. I was annoyed because Hannes had waved me off and said that my ideas were becoming too radical, and that the higher ups were beginning to notice and talk. 

He told me to forget about my studies, and to go home and enjoy the holidays. He also dropped in that I should make some time for prayer and that I shouldn’t let myself wander too far from the Lord’s light. Hannes had known me since I was a boy, and I think he was afraid that I was wandering down a dangerous path. Little did he know.”

Eren says the last sentence with a timid chuckle, a clear attempt to lighten the mood, but Levi isn’t about to bite. This is the most that Eren has ever opened up to him, and he’s intent on learning even more. He sits back in the grass, his hands splayed out behind him and legs straight out in front of him.

It only occurs to Levi then that he isn’t wearing any shoes, just his standard black socks, and suddenly he can’t remember when the last time was that he wore a pair of shoes…probably the last time he ventured outside, which was so long ago now that he can barely recall it at all.

“I remember it was dark when I was walking home, it was winter so that wasn’t too uncommon, but it was snowing and I know that it was a lot later than I expected when I left the hospital, and that I would have to pick up the pace if Dad was going to be home when I got there. Although to be honest, I don’t think I was even sure he’d even want to go to mass in the first place. He’d become so…despondent since my Mom died, pretty much just a shadow of the man I had known growing up. He was always a stern man, my father, and didn’t hesitate to cane me if I was acting out, but aside from all that he was a loving man, only wanted the best for all of us and did what he could to help the community. I think that’s one of the reasons Hannes put up with me at all, because my Dad had once saved his wife’s life. He was my hero, and I looked up to him, and honestly I think him becoming like that was probably why I had been so hell bent on studying the brain…I think subconsciously I had just wanted to save him, bring him back to being the man I had once known.

The moonlight was the only thing that lit my path as I didn’t have a lantern, but I knew the way like the back of my hand even if the road had been pitch black. Normally I would have hitched a ride with Pieck if she was going my way, her family owned a horse and cart, and she drove it to all the local wheat fields to collect enough from the workers for the town bakers to make bread. But, she’d gone missing a couple of weeks prior…her family had been devastated, and she was only the first of a number of people to mysteriously disappear in that time.”

Levi raises a curious eyebrow at that, and Eren takes a deep breath before continuing with his story.

“First of all it was just Pieck, and it was a shock to everyone in town. But she was in her early twenties and was known to be close with Porco Galliard, a single man from a neighbouring town, so a lot of people had initially suspected that they may have run away together to get married. She was promised to Theo Magath, who was a much older man, you see…but regardless of that, it became clear that wasn’t true when Porco had come by looking for her, and another person went missing. 

Well, technically two people went missing at the same time. Reiner and Bertholdt, they were two of the boys I had went to school with and considered friends, but while I decided to further my education, they went to work in the fields to earn money for their families. They weren’t as well off as my family, but that didn’t stop them continuing to say hello and chat whenever we bumped into each other. And then Annie went missing. Her father was an acquaintance of my Dad’s, and she may even have been the wife my parents chose for me if I wasn’t already betrothed to another. Yes, I was engaged, I’ll tell you about that another time.” Eren says with a grin when Levi gives him a surprised look, “And then to make things worse, Falco disappeared too. He was quite a bit younger than the rest, the son of a butcher, and that’s when people really started to panic.”

“Did you ever find out what happened to them?” Levi asks, unable to keep his curiosity to himself, and Eren nods solemnly.

“Yes.” Eren answers, “In fact, I found out that very same night.”

+++

To you, 200-something years earlier…

Eren practically runs into the house as soon as he manages to force open the front door. It gets incredibly stiff whenever it’s this cold outside, and he’d tried knocking a couple of times to get his father’s attention, but no answer. 

Not that it would matter that he’s let himself in, this is still his house and his Dad is expecting him anyway.

He has just hung up his heavy, woollen coat and taken off his hat, set down his cane, and is currently in the midst of blowing warm air into his freezing cold hands - he really should seek out those gloves that his Mom had made him before she passed - when he notices that the house is in complete darkness. Not totally uncommon given his Father’s penchant for an early bedtime these days, although Eren had expected him to still be awake to wish him a Merry Christmas, even if he wasn’t up for midnight mass. Given the fact Eren hasn’t been spending all that much time at home these days.

It’s not that Eren is trying to avoid Grisha Yeager or anything, it’s just that it’s become much easier to spend his nights at the hospital, either in the ward with patients or sleeping over in the cots among other doctors and medical students like himself that are too busy to head back home for the evening. And even when he is at home, his Dad isn’t all that much company anyway, or he has somehow managed to pull himself out of the house to actually go to work.

Eren sighs defeatedly, meticulously lights an oil lamp and is about to head straight up the stairs to read in the library when he spots a light coming from underneath the large door to the basement. It’s just a faint glow, but given that it’s coming from down a set of stairs, it must mean that someone is down there…but why at this time of night?

Eren knows that it’s most likely his Dad down there, but it’s so out of character for him that it could just as well be an intruder. Either way, Eren decides to proceed with caution, and heads over to the basement door. 

The basement has always given him the creeps, ever since he was a little boy, so it’s a bit embarrassing how nervous he feels as he turns the doorknob and pulls the door out towards himself.

The door creaks ever so slightly, which causes him to wince, but there seems to be no sound of alarm from downstairs. Indicating that if there is someone else here, they’re not exactly fussed about being caught in the act. Unless of course they’re so caught up in what they are doing, that they haven’t yet heard Eren approaching.

The stench that is wafting from the bottom of the stairs is like nothing he’s ever smelt before, it’s rotten and makes his eyes sting with tears. The only thing he has close enough to compare it to is the times when he’s been sent to the morgue at the hospital on the odd occasion. 

With a burst of adrenaline in his slightly frightened state, Eren finds himself taking the steps two at a time as he increases his pace. If it does turn out to be strangers in his basement, he doesn’t want to look like a complete coward.

The glow from the oil lamps being used in the basement becomes brighter the closer he gets to the room, and he almost drops the one in his hands when he finally reaches the bottom of the stairs.

His father is here, standing in the middle of the room in his white, hospital jacket. But he’s not alone…

He’s surrounded by Pieck, Reiner, Bertholdt, Annie and Falco. They’re all here, in his basement, every single of them. 

And they’re all very dead. 

Their mutilated and mangled bodies are all around the room, in varying positions and degrees of decomposition, indicating they were not all killed at once. Because it’s clear just by looking at them, that they did not die of natural causes. The stink of urine and other bodily functions is rife, and Eren can even detect a scent of burnt flesh, all of which make him want to gag and expel the meagre contents of his stomach in an instant.

But it’s the sight of his father, standing in the middle of the room, absolutely drenched in fresh blood that covers his whole jacket and gloved hands, giving him a manic grin with a wild look in his eyes that Eren has never seen before, that makes him really start to vomit.

It’s clear who is responsible…and he can’t make it make sense in his brain. He wants to deny it, wants to say that this is all one big misunderstanding, but he can’t. Not when the evidence is right in front of his very eyes.

But that doesn’t mean he can understand it. How does he even begin to comprehend that his Dad, his hero, is a killer? A serial killer, no less? How had it even come to this?

Grisha is approaching him with a concerned, outstretched hand but Eren quickly bats it away and backs up enough so that he’s almost back at the stairs. 

“Dad…Dad, what have you done?” Eren asks, his voice hoarse and almost a whisper. He’s in shock, and still can’t believe what he’s seeing. 

Maybe if he bites his thumb hard enough, he may wake up from this nightmare.

“I did it Eren…I worked it out.” Grisha says, his eyes wide with hysteria and voice crazed like a madman. He’s unstable, Eren doesn’t have to be a trainee doctor to know that.

Eren ultimately decides it’s best to air on the side of caution so not to spook him or set him off.

“What, Dad? What did you manage to work out?” Eren asks, his voice as gentle and encouraging as he can manage. 

Grisha simply grins even wider if that were at all possible, “I worked it out Eren, I figured out the key to human life!”

“W-What are are you talking about, Dad? What do you mean? What did you do?” 

Eren falters as he begins to scan around the room and feels himself beginning to become queasy again as he takes in the images surrounding him. It’s a bloodbath in here…like the inside of a butcher’s slaughterhouse. Only much, much worse.

Annie and Bertholdt lay side by side on the wooden table his Mom had once used to separate veggies she’d grown in the garden, completely stripped of all their clothes - like all of the others in the room - and their skin. It looks like they’ve both been flayed of every inch of their pale flesh, and chunks of their insides have clearly been removed entirely. It doesn’t take Eren very long to locate where their missing parts have been taken however, as Reiner lays burnt to a crisp on an adjoining table, clutching on to Bertholt’s bloody hand, with layers of skin and numerous other body parts wrapped around him like protection to the elements…like armour. Reiner’s body is one of the least recognisable, Eren notes, the only thing giving him away is his blond hair. Falco is easily located next, sitting on a chair, with the top of his head pried open painfully from his jaw, and laying limply against the back of the wooden chair. It’s a disgusting scene, and Eren can’t help but hope that the poor boy died from shock or something else before that happened. He can also see that some teeth have been pulled. Pieck, however, is the most disturbing to look at. Her back has been broken in several places, along with her arms and legs, and she is propped up in a crawling position on the table, her eyes wide open and staring. 

Eren has to tear his eyes away from the undignified scene and locks his horrified gaze back on his father.

“I discovered the key to life Eren, and I finally know how death can be reversed!” Grisha rants, eyes unfocused, “Vitality can be brought back, regenerated! It’s possible, Eren! At first I was certain that the answer lay in the skin, as that’s one of the first things to lose it’s pallor upon death…so I thought if there was a way to see that changing, then maybe you could reverse the process also. I had a theory that if you placed living flesh on skin that’s already dead, then surely the draining life of the organs has to go somewhere?! I needed both a male and female donor to be sure…but it didn’t work, Reiner didn’t come back. But then I had a thought…the teeth are the most durable part of the body after death, there must be a reason for that.”

“Y-You killed Falco for his teeth? You… You didn’t have to do that Dad…” Eren croaks out, his head cloudy with disbelief at what he’s hearing his father say so naturally, as if he were discussing an amusing anecdote from work. 

“I’ll admit that was…unfortunate. He wouldn’t stop screaming and Pieck was roaring her head off, and I just wanted them to be quiet, I hadn’t meant for him to die like that. But in the end, it was for the greater good.” Grisha defends himself, like he hadn’t been responsible for the death of a young boy.

“Pieck went missing first…what did you do with her this whole time, Dad?” Eren asks, afraid to know the answer.

“I had originally planned to invigorate new life into her body, as I thought that a newly formed foetus would be the most efficient test subject for my experiments. But ultimately that proved to take too long, so I decided to scrap that and try out my final theory once the others had failed.” 

Eren pales when he understands the meaning of his father words, and suddenly the room feels far less stable than it had a few moments ago.

“You tried to get her pregnant?” 

“You’re missing the bigger picture Eren, that would have taken far too many months and this idea, this idea worked! It worked Eren! The answer lay in the spinal fluid all this time! I ingested some of it and I already feel better than ever.” Grisha says excitedly, holding up a vial of thick, red blood.

Suddenly Eren feels like he may actually throw up again, and has to keep himself calm so his Dad will continue talking to him. He knows from experience that saying the wrong thing or acting the wrong way can have dire consequences when it comes to dealing with someone with a sick brain. His father is not himself, he’s gone, taken away by a hidden illness that’s caused him to break free from his sanity.

And for a moment, just for a moment, Eren can see why so many people believe their loved ones have been possessed by the devil.

“Okay Dad…listen to me…if this spinal fluid works like you say it does, then why has it not worked on any of them?” Eren asks, tilting his head in the direction of the people he’d once known and enjoyed the company of…all of them obliterated by a man on a rampage.

“Oh…because I haven’t used it on them.” Grisha says with a nod, “We need to keep this safe, there wasn’t much of it and the others’ had congealed already. But Eren, don’t you understand? We need to go and get her now. We can finally bring her back!”

Eren narrows his eyes in confusion at that statement, “Bring who back Dad?”

Grisha gives him a strange look, as if they should both be on the same page at this point.

“Your Mother, of course.”

It’s only then that this whole nightmare actually begins to make sense, and Eren feels hot, salty tears springing to his eyes. He’s known all this time that his Dad has been miserable since his Mom died, had known that he would have done anything to heal her and felt an incredible amount of guilt at not being able to save her while managing to protect so many others from the plague that took her away too soon. But she’s dead, Eren knows that…and he knows somewhere deep down, Grisha knows that he can’t bring her back, but that hadn’t stopped him from going out and stealing five young people in the prime of their lives, torturing them until their limbs broke and their hearts gave out, or they lost too much blood to be able to survive. 

Eren wonders how many of them screamed or cried, or called out for their mothers. How long it must have took for them to finally let death save them from their suffering. And instantly, Eren is no longer sad, instead he’s determined and knows exactly what he has to do. He has to get his father help…but first he must deal with the mess he’s made.

“Okay, we can go and get her Dad, I’ll help you get her out of that hole in the ground.” Eren promises with a nod, blinking back tears, “But first, we need to clean up down here don’t we? Mom would be really upset if she came down here and saw all of the bodies, not after everything she’s been through right?”

Grisha seems to think about this for a moment, “What about the fluid? It won’t last forever.”

“It should last another day at least, and if not then we can just get more. Right, Dad?” Eren suggests shakily, the emotion not quite registering in his eyes, but hoping all the same that he’s convincing enough not to cause any real suspicion.

Grisha is silent for a long few moments before he nods in agreement, “You’re right. Now that we know how it all works, we can gain a new donor if the sample deteriorates. We should also take our findings to the hospital once your Mother is back. They can’t ignore the evidence if it’s right there in front of them.”

A shiver makes it’s way up Eren’s spine as he tries to plant a smile on his face, “Yeah, don’t worry Dad, I’ll take you to the Hospital once this is all over, I promise…but for now, we should dig some graves for them. The shovels are right over there, how about we take them into the forest? It’s nice in the spring, I think they’d like that.” 

Eren hopes the shakiness in his tone isn’t audible to his Dad as he grabs the two shovels from the corner of the room, his face crumpling as he turns away. His whole world is collapsing in front of his very eyes and there is nothing he can do to stop it. He knows he’ll have to take his father to the hospital and admit to everything he’s done. Knows he’ll have to testify that his father’s spirit was temporarily taken over by the devil and that Grisha Yeager will be shamed, his good name tarnished and he will locked away in an asylum for the rest of his days.

Maybe Eren will be lucky enough to be in charge of his care once he’s fully qualified. Then again, that may be asking for too much. And this is only if he’s cleared of any wrongdoing…he could just as easily be locked up too if no one believes his story or his father turns on him.

Grisha gives Eren an odd look as he takes the shovel from his son’s hand, and Eren tries to give him the most encouraging smile he can muster, all the while grieving inside for the family he’s lost, the friends who have been stolen away, and the life he had once known now smashed to smithereens.

He can’t quite convince himself to look any happier than he’s already pretending to be.

“Okay, let’s go.” Eren says, looking onto Grisha’s tired face and turning away to lead them back up the stairs, giving the room one last, haunted look before he steels his resolve and begins to move away from it all.

That had been Eren’s fatal mistake. 

He hadn’t seen the way Grisha’s eyes had narrowed in suspicion as Eren’s face dropped just that tiny little bit before he’d fully turned away, hadn’t listened to the way his breath hitched as he realised Eren had no intention of following through with their plan, hadn’t felt the swoosh of the shovel as it was swung swiftly into the back of his skull.

And most importantly, hadn’t heard the word whispered under his breath as his father murdered him in their basement. 

“Liar.”

+++

“I don’t remember being buried.” Eren says sadly, “But I know that my father must have removed my waistcoat, as I was wearing it when I went down to the basement. Maybe it was bloody and he burned it? I don’t know.

He didn’t bury the other bodies after all, and I don’t know how long he kept them there, just that he probably burned them. All I know is what i’ve heard, that he went into those woods one day and hung himself from a tree. I don’t even know who found him, just that whoever did alerted the police, and they found a river of blood in the basement and some of the clothes belonging to those who died. That must have been one hell of a shock.”

One look at Levi’s face shows the man is pale, paler than he is on a normal day, which is rather worrying in all honesty. Eren thinks Levi looks to be on the verge of throwing up, and is about to ask if the other man needs him to stop when Levi speaks up for the first time in a while.

“Didn’t any of them go looking for you? You were missing too, surely someone would have noticed?”

Eren gives him a little rueful smile, one that has no humour in it. 

“They did for a while. They checked the house, the houses in town, questioned anybody who knew me or had ever talked to me and even sent out a warning to some neighbouring villages that I was missing, from what I’ve heard and read.”

Levi narrows his eyes, “A warning? What the hell for?”

Eren sighs a little, clearly uncomfortable at the line of questioning, but remembering that Levi had asked for him to be honest. In this situation, there really is no point in hiding the truth.

“Leaving behind a scene like that, disappearing into thin air, the fact that I was familiar with most of the people who died on a personal level, speaking to the staff at the hospital that knew me and my radical ideas…and then having my father - a surgeon with good standing - suddenly kill himself with no warning. It all looks a bit odd to an outsider looking in.”

The realisation hits Levi like a tonne of bricks, and suddenly he remembers why Eren’s name had sounded so familiar back when Eren had first introduced himself, why he couldn’t get the niggling sensation out the back of his mind that he’d heard the name before…or read it somewhere.

Because he had, he’d read all about Eren Yeager, the murderous doctor in training who had gone on an evil killing spree after becoming mentally deranged, causing his pious, kind-hearted father to commit suicide out of guilt, before disappearing forever…never to be seen or heard from again. Just like a myth, or a legend.

“They thought you did it, didn’t they?”

“Yes, I’m Eren Yeager, son of Grisha and Carla Yeager, last of my bloodline and suspected murderer of Annie Leonhardt, Bertholdt Hoover, Falco Grice, Pieck Finger and Reiner Braun.

And I bet you wish you had run away from me now, don't you Levi?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: All of the victims of Grisha's killing spree are/or have been Titans in the actual AOT series.
> 
> Pieck - Cart Titan  
> Falco - Jaw Titan  
> Reiner - Armoured Titan  
> Annie - Female Titan  
> Bertholdt - Colossal Titan
> 
> Next Chapter we will be focusing more on the pair's relationship once again, and how it progresses over time now that everything between them is out in the open...for now. Please remember that it's currently not clear how much time Eren and Levi have actually spent together, and this is actually quite important. 
> 
> Stay Tuned!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone and welcome to chapter 5!
> 
> Wow, it's been a hot minute right? I'm so sorry, I've just really trying to figure out the best way to write this chapter as it's filled with quite a lot of twists and revelations...some of which, I'm hoping you have some things to say about in the comment section possibly xD
> 
> Once again, I'm so thankful that may of you are still subscribed and the response I got on the last chapter was fantastic so I just want to say thank you all so much for your patience and I hope you enjoy the upcoming chapter(s) to this story :)
> 
> Btw I’ve also made a Twitter, so if you fancy regular updates etc or just want to say hi, then please follow me on @JupiterRose14
> 
> Please Enjoy!

Levi spots the note on the refrigerator as soon as he walks into the kitchen, and wastes no time in plucking it between his fingers to read as he sits himself at his breakfast bar. He’s not feeling all that hungry today, so he decides to forgo a meal this morning. 

It’s not like anyone is about to scold him for it, and Eren never pushes him to eat when he doesn’t want to. Something Levi appreciates greatly.

He’s also stopped trying to get Levi to do things when he’s not feeling up to it, and doesn’t pressure him into telling anymore stories about his less than stellar past. 

Another thing he’s immensely grateful for.

Ever since Eren opened up about his own horrific death in the basement, the poltergeist has been far less pushy than he had been before, clearly not liking the feeling of being the one under the spotlight for once. Levi can completely understand why, if he had gone through what Eren had in his tragically short life, he knows for certain he wouldn’t want to be reminded of it for even a second. 

To see the people he’d known and cared about in those days murdered in such terrible circumstances by the one person he had left in the world…it doesn’t even bear thinking about.

So Levi had changed the subject, that day in the garden, thanked Eren for telling him and promised to never bring it up again unless he specifically wanted to talk to him about it. After everything that Eren has attempted to do for him in his time at this house, it’s only fair that he’d repay some of that back by lending an ear if that’s what Eren wants. 

Eren has been alone in this house for two whole centuries with no one to turn to…there may well be more that he’ll eventually want to confide in him about. 

And Levi’s not going anywhere anytime soon.

The taken aback look on Eren’s face that day had told him just how shocked the physically younger man had been that Levi wasn’t about to judge him for his past or choose to close himself off from his company, but Eren isn’t the only one of the two of them that had been lonely before Levi came here, and Levi isn’t interested in painting Eren as a monster like many had before him. 

He’s not about to be like those idiots who had treated Eren like a scary, horror story that parents tell to frightened young children in their beds, whilst the man himself had lay dead in a shallow grave after his own father had killed him in cold blood.

Shaking his head clear of any unwanted thoughts, Levi takes the time to read over Eren’s note, written in the latter’s almost un-intelligible scrawl.

‘Morning Levi,

How are you feeling today? Hopefully good, as it’s such a wonderful day outside. Real sun for once!

Come and find me in the backyard once you’re ready.

Your forever friend,

Eren’

Levi notes that Eren has been signing off his mini letters like this more and more often recently, immediately reminding the dark-haired man just how important his impact on Eren has been since he moved here countless weeks…months ago? 

It’s a rather odd feeling, knowing that you’re literally the centre of another person’s world…however in saying that, it’s not exactly like Levi himself has had anybody else to lean on for quite a long time. 

Levi quickly folds the note into a tiny square and pockets it before heading out the sliding door of the kitchen and into the backyard. Definitely a newer feature of the house that was very unlikely to have been here in the time Eren was alive. He’ll have to remember and ask which parts of the house are actually original features and which have been added or restored. There are a couple that look to be period based but he’s unsure of how legit they really are.

It’s handy having a ghost on hand to appraise things on sight, he’ll have to remember that if they ever decide to have a yard sale. 

Like that’s about to happen anytime soon, but it’s nice to know he has the option.

Eren certainly hadn’t been using the promise of sun as a clever ruse to get him outside, as one step out the door has him needing to shield his eyes from the rays beating down on the ground, the air nice and warm on his skin but certainly nowhere near hot enough to burn. The grass is the purest green Levi thinks he’s ever seen - except for Eren’s emerald eyes, of course - and the smell brings him back to when he was a little boy and would play around with his Mom in their backyard back home.

Eren himself is laying on the ground in the middle of the greenery, his eyes closed and white shirt blowing in the wind - raising just enough to reveal a patch of tanned, unblemished skin underneath. Levi’s breath catches a little at the way the sun shines on the younger man, giving him an ethereal glow that successfully reminds him that Eren doesn’t quite belong in this world, despite how relaxed and completely at ease he looks in it.

Levi, as of late, is finding it harder and harder to keep his less than pure thoughts to himself the more time he spends around Eren, and he isn’t fully convinced that said poltergeist hasn’t noticed the lingering looks or the way Levi continually asks him to make himself physically present so that they can touch hands or so that Levi can feel Eren’s breath tickling his skin.

So far he’s been able to pass it off as wanting to make sure that Eren is actually real and not just another projection of his Schizophrenia, and he’s received no arguments or rejections from Eren himself, but with the way Levi actively tries to keep them connected for just a little bit more each time they touch, he doesn’t imagine it will be long before Eren begins trying to keep him at bay.

He’s surprised as it is that Eren hasn’t yet heard him during the night, when he’s alone in his bed with thoughts of the brunet filling his mind…and maybe other places too. 

Levi clears his throat audibly to get that particular train of thought firmly out of his head, before he asks, “Can you actually feel it?”

Eren slowly opens his gorgeous, green eyes and turns his head to look in Levi’s direction, “Feel what?”

Levi gestures upwards with a relaxed hand, “The sun? The breeze? Can you still feel them now?”

Eren seems to ponder the question for a minute or two, before eventually answering, “A little…I think. I don’t know. I’m not actually sure if I can really feel it, or if I’m just remembering how it felt before? What about you?”

“What about me?” Levi asks, slightly confused by the question.

“Can YOU feel those things?” Eren clarifies, quickly following up with, “What do they feel like to you?”

Levi isn’t sure how to respond to that, how do you explain feelings? How can you describe physical things to someone who possibly hasn’t felt them in around 200 years? Believe it or not, it’s a far more difficult task than you may think.

“It’s…fuck, I don’t know it’s like…warm? And yet cool, but at the same time?” Levi says uncertainly, feeling a touch stupid about not being able to verbally express what the sun feels like…or a breeze. 

Since when did words become so hard? 

“No, I mean what do they feel like to you specifically?” Eren asks, looking him dead in the eye, “What do they make you think of? Is there a memory that you maybe unconsciously associate them with?”

Levi wants to huff and ask how he’d know that if it’s done ‘unconsciously’, but instead finds a flood of memories rushing their way to the forefront of his mind. Memories long past, and long forgotten.

“Summer.” Levi answers, looking up at the blue sky above his head, “Sunbathing in the sand. The smell of salt in the air. Melted ice cream, sticking all over my fingers and making me want to go clean them in the ocean immediately. The blue, foamy waves shining in the distance…”

Remembering the time he’d once gone to the beach in college with his old friend Erwin has him almost reliving the past as he describes it. It must have been over a decade ago, and probably the only time he’s ever been to a beach in his life. They’d been on a date, him and Erwin, but had later decided to just stay friends and they’d remained as such until the blond man had died in a freak accident a number of years ago. And while it may not have been the best day of his life, Levi can’t help but recall how alive he’d felt then…away from the hustle and bustle of the city, and in a completely new environment he wasn’t familiar with in the slightest. 

It was nice, and gives him such an odd feeling of nostalgia that he can hardly say he’s ever felt before.

He eventually manages to snap himself out of it and instantly looks towards Eren, who’s giving him a broad, toothy smile.

“I’ve never been to the ocean.” He says, looking rather wistful, “What’s it like?”

“S’fucking filthy. You’d probably love it.” Levi answers without hesitation, smirking in Eren’s direction, “I must have been cleaning sand out of my ass for about three weeks afterwards, seriously that shit gets everywhere.”

That particular image has Eren practically rolling in laughter as he imagines his short, grumpy roommate cursing and complaining over constantly finding sand all around him despite not being to the beach in quite a while. He can almost see the crease of annoyance in the other man’s brow and snarl curling his lip in irritation. 

He most definitely doesn’t visualise Levi doing ANYTHING to his ass. Absolutely not…

“Has anyone ever told you you’re an insufferable brat?” Levi asks with a deadpan tone, and shaking his head in dismay.

“A few.” Eren answers honestly, “But you definitely tell me the most.”

Levi looks at him oddly then, as if doing some sort of mental assessment that Eren’s not been made privy to.

Eren finds himself curling in on himself a little at the scrutiny, “What?”

“You really were a troublemaker weren’t you? Back then?”

Eren sighs in relief, unsure of what he was expecting exactly, but probably not something as obvious as that.

He shrugs, “I told you I was. I constantly got in trouble and was frequently caned for my insolent behaviour. This was before dad became handy with the shovel, you know?”

Levi rolls his eyes in response to Eren’s sassing, “Very fucking funny, Shithead. But I was more talking about when you got older. You said before that you were engaged, and you could have also married Annie…I just wonder how many women you had falling over themselves to get close to you. I bet all you had to do was bat those big green eyes and they’d be yours.”

Eren gets a little shy at the thinly veiled compliment and would have no doubt outright blushed if he’d had the ability to.

“Eh, not really.” Eren admits, “It wasn’t like that back then. Well…okay it was, but just…not for me.”

“What do you mean, brat?” Levi asks curiously, and Eren becomes a little sheepish at the line of questioning.

He really shouldn’t feel nervous talking about this stuff, it’s a new generation after all! And Levi has already shared his preferences, and quite openly at that. 

But still, it doesn’t make it any easier to get rid of that old fear that used to constantly loom over him. As if God was watching at all times…

“I didn’t really have THAT with anybody…it just wasn’t what I was interested in. Girls I mean. I was more…into guys.”

Levi’s eyes widen in barely contained shock at the revelation. That is definitely not what he’d expected to hear.

Before he can respond in any way, however, Eren continues.

“Well…it’s not like I had any point of reference or anything. I told you what it was like back then, could you imagine what would have happened if I were found out? And it was far too risky to try and suss out who could have been like me, what if they’d told someone and it got back to my Father? Or someone worse? I could have been shunned entirely…maybe even killed. They wouldn’t have done it openly of course, but there would have been ways that no one would think of question. It was just easier to pretend I was like everybody else that way.”

Levi finds himself nodding in understanding. He knows exactly what that feels like, the underlying fear of not being accepted by those you love the most and wondering where you’ll fit into the world once you’re fully out. 

He can only imagine how much more difficult it would have been for someone like Eren, considering the world he’d lived in.

“Did your Fiancée know?” Levi asks, unsure why it would matter anyway, but somehow still wanting to know all the same. 

Eren nods his head, “Yeah, she knew. She was my best friend, after all. Mikasa knew everything about me. And she knew what would happen if things got out, so she did what she could to help me keep it a secret, even if it meant she’d never get the loving, devoted husband that she may have wanted. She truly was the best, I honestly didn’t deserve her.”

Eren is expecting some form of response from Levi, but is met with complete silence. And when he turns his head to look over at Levi once again, he finds the man looks to be even paler than usual.

“Levi? Are you alright?”

“Yeah, it’s just…it’s stupid, but…my Nana’s name was Mikasa. And she was named after her own Grandmother. Mikasa Ackerman…or, Mikasa Kirstein, as she was known for a while.” 

Mikasa Ackerman. 

Well, fuck him sideways.

Eren can’t believe he’d never thought to connect the dots between his old best friend and Levi before! Aside from the same, albeit relatively common last name, the pair physically resembled one another. 

Sure, Levi looks far more caucasian than he remembers Mikasa to be, but there’s still a real likeness there. He honestly can’t believe it, Levi is undoubtedly one of Mikasa’s descendants!

Wow…so in the end, she really did just give up and married Jean, huh?

Upon further thought, maybe that’s why he’s often felt so comfortable with Levi? Perhaps that’s why he’s had this pressing, overwhelming need to get to know the other man completely and about where he came from? It could just be, that somehow, his old connection with Mikasa is what had drawn him so strongly to Levi after all this time.

Maybe that’s why Levi is the only person in the world Eren has even remotely cared about since then.

After a few seconds of silence, Eren finally manages to say something out loud. 

“Jean Kirstein was obsessed with your Great-Great Grandmother. Honestly, I hadn’t expected her to cave…then again, she probably didn’t have a choice in the end. He would have done anything to make her his wife…or paid anything I should say. Fucking Horse faced Bastard.”

Levi gulps a little at the words…so Eren did know the same Mikasa he’d been told all about when he was a little boy. 

The half Asian girl who’d been born into a world of oppression against women, was married off to a young man from her village after her Fiancé either died or disappeared, and was taken to Paris against her will to live a life she didn’t want. He remembered how his own Grandmother had told him how her namesake had fled the country one night while her husband slept and had managed to bargain her way back on to a ship back home. It was never known if she had gotten pregnant before she ran away, or if it had happened somewhere along the way back - but either way, she’d arrived home single and knocked up. 

And when her son had been born, he was baptised with the surname Ackerman. 

He tells Eren the story he’d been made to learn since he were a young boy, and by the end of the re-telling, the brunet man is smiling rather fondly.

“You know, none of what you’ve just told me surprises me in the slightest.” Eren says, shaking his head gently, “It would be just like her to flee an entire country and bully somebody into letting her board their ship. Mikasa was an insanely strong person, both physically and mentally, and anytime anybody came even close to pushing me around, she was there…and by God, she was feared by most people. But she was never standoffish about it, she just knew what she wanted and she wanted it done right. A lot like you, really.”

Levi isn’t quite sure what to say to that…how are you supposed to react when your poltergeist roommate - that you may or may not have been lusting over - suddenly tells you that he was once engaged to your Great-Great Grandmother and would have married her, thus deleting your whole existence, if he hadn’t been murdered by his father first in the house you both currently live in? 

This is not exactly a normal situation, by any means. 

But it does get him thinking about something else. Something that’s been bothering him for a little while now.

“Eren…when did you say you died again?” Levi asks after a few moments, “What day was it?”

“Christ, I don’t know Levi…” Eren says, trying to cast his mind back, “Maybe a Thursday? Though it could have been Tuesday…it definitely wasn’t a Monday, I know that for sure.”

“No, moron!” Levi interjects with a dramatic roll of his eyes, “What DATE?!”

“Oh!” Eren exclaims in understanding, slapping himself internally, “Christmas Eve. Or…well, it could have been Christmas Day. You know what, it must have been after midnight by that point, so yeah, Christmas Day. Wow…I hadn’t actually realised that before. Why do you ask?”

Levi is looking at him like he’s come to some sort of realisation in his head, “I was born on Christmas Day.”

It’s hard for Eren to say what exactly he feels in that moment, but whatever it is, it doesn’t exactly serve to settle any of the uneasiness he’d began to feel as soon as Levi had mentioned who his ancestor was. It’s all getting a little too weird, too perfect, to be considered co-incidental. And from the looks of things, it seems like Levi has come to a similar conclusion in his mind.

“Do you…” Eren begins, before pausing a moment for breath and continuing, “Do you think this was all somehow supposed to happen? That you were meant to come here to live? That we…that we would…”

But before Eren can finish his question, whatever the end of it would have been, Levi has already leaned over and has his soft, thin lips pressed against Eren’s ghostly ones. 

The kiss is most definitely unexpected, but that’s not to say it’s unwanted. In fact, if Eren’s being completely honest with himself, he’s probably been imagining this particular scenario in his head for a hell of a long time now. More time than he can recall, in fact. What it would be like to simply pull Levi into him one day while he’s washing the windows and force that sexy little mouth open with his tongue until they were battling for dominance of the kiss, just like he’d seen on TV or read in books. 

But this…this was just as nice, better even. Perfect. The subtle boldness of the move on Levi’s part has the little hairs on Eren’s arms standing on end, and is giving him stirring feelings in areas he hasn’t shown any attention to in a monumental amount of time.

And quite frankly…he’s absolutely ravenous for it.

However, despite the lustful headiness that clouds the forefront of Eren’s mind at the feel of Levi kissing him like this, it’s over far too quickly for either of their liking, and they end up just staring into each other’s eyes for a good few minutes before Levi is able to speak again.

“So…” Levi begins, before his lips upturn into a sly smirk, “Were you able to feel that?” 

And oh yes. Eren was DEFINITELY able to feel that. In more places than one.

+++

It’s earlier than usual when Levi chooses to get up this morning.

It’s only just gone 8am, but it’s still a good few hours before Levi would normally be forcing himself out of bed after a good - maybe? - sleep and making his way down the stairs to see if Eren was around. 

As it is, it’s likely that his roommate hadn’t been expecting Levi to be up and about at this time either, as he’s currently nowhere to be seen and there isn’t a note yet waiting for him on the refrigerator like there’d normally be. So Levi decides to occupy himself in other ways until Eren chooses to make himself visible for the first time today. 

He’s at a bit of a loss for a little while, not feeling anywhere near hungry enough to eat, yet also not all that interested in mundane daytime TV either. He plays around with the idea of maybe going up the stairs to grab a book or maybe pick up one of his instruments, but finds neither idea all that appealing, as he’s read the majority of the books in his library at least once, and he’d just spent several hours the night before teaching Eren a basic song on the violin, with mixed results.

However, with the idea of reading comes the idea of checking to see if his newspaper has arrived yet, but when Levi opens the front door, he’s not too surprised to see that it’s not yet on his doorstep, and he’s just in fact about to close the door back over behind him, when something that would normally be easily missed catches the corner of his eye.

The little flag on his mailbox has been lifted, indicating he has mail.

Levi crinkles his nose a little in confusion as he tries to work out in his head what it could be, and comes up blank, as all of his bills are emailed to him and he rarely gets letters otherwise. It could always be junk mail of some sort, but he hasn’t had any of that since he moved here and doesn’t imagine it would just randomly start being sent to his address unless there were some kind of change to his mail preferences he hasn’t been made aware of. 

It could also be a hospital appointment…and suddenly, the idea of junk mail isn’t all that abhorrent to him anymore.

With a sigh, he arrives at the front of his mailbox and unlatches the front, only to see that his daily newspaper is in fact lodged inside.

He immediately begins grumbling to himself as soon as he finds it, surely they could come up with a permanent spot to leave it without changing it up so much with no notice? First it was in the mailbox like it is now, then it was being left on his doorstep, and now this? It’s just sheer incompetence at it’s finest. He’ll definitely be writing that letter as soon as he’s back inside!

It’s with that thought in his mind that Levi realises that he hadn’t actually put any shoes on over his socked feet, and he accidentally steps on a large stone which causes him to recoil on instinct rather than it actually hurting. But it’s enough to cause him to lose his footing, and he feels himself falling backwards before he can do anything to stop it. 

Time seems to slow down as it happens, there’s nothing to grab onto to save himself and Levi just knows he’s going to end up bruised in several places from the harsh concrete of the road underneath. He quickly braces himself and is all but ready for the impact…

When he lands straight onto a strangely soft surface, and opens his eyes to find that he’s back in his bedroom. Specifically, he’s sprawled out on his bed, as if he’d just fallen onto it.

That’s…weird. Had he dreamt that whole thing up or…what? That’s an awfully weird thing for his subconscious to have cooked up…although then again, it’s entirely possible. Did that actually happen or will he go downstairs now to find Eren sitting there casually and his newspaper on the doorstep like it’s supposed to be? 

There’s only one way to find out.

As he heads back downstairs, Levi finds that Eren - just like in his ‘dream' - is still nowhere to be found, and finds himself wondering if he should maybe try and find him first to explain what happened and see if Eren has any ideas. There was always the real possibility it could be his Schizophrenia making him believe he’s been doing things he hasn’t, and that worries him a bit as he doesn’t think he’s quite ready to face Hange yet. Not after everything he said last time.

He shakes himself out of his negative thoughts and decides there’s no point putting it off, and heads towards the front door to open it up once again.

The newspaper isn’t there, but had he really expected it to be?

Well, if he had, that idea would have been shot straight out of his mind when he saw the paper laying on the ground by his mailbox, with several pages already flying free somewhere in the street.

That’s…slightly worrying. 

As he approaches the mailbox, a touch slower and less determined than before, he peers tentatively down at the pretty much destroyed newspaper. From the looks of things, it had been dislodged from the mailbox and then subsequently either dropped or thrown on the ground. Both things that could have easily occurred the first time when he came to collect it before falling over and somehow ending up back in the house.

But that wouldn’t make sense? 

Unsure of what else to do at this point, Levi begins to pick up the pages of the paper that are currently decorating his drive and has almost all of them in his hands when he spots a couple of stray pages out on the road in front. 

Not thinking much of it, Levi reaches over to collect the pages in order to put them in the trash, when he takes a step out on to the concrete…and finds himself crouched over in the middle of his own kitchen. His hands completely empty.

No. No way. This can’t be happening, that can’t be right?!

Levi immediately runs to his front door once again and swings it open, and instantly sees the countless sheets of newspaper blowing around in front of his driveway, the mailbox still sitting open as he’d apparently left it. 

He staggers back, his palms covering his face in shock and disbelief as he comes to terms with what’s just happened twice now. It takes him back to something Eren told him a while ago, about what happens when he tries to leave the house himself…

Levi needs to test this theory, he has to know one way or the other. He runs straight back the way he came, passed the living room and kitchen area, and throws open the sliding door that leads to the backyard.

He eyes the tree line of the forest as soon as it comes into view and takes a deep calming breath to prepare himself for what comes next. 

This can only go one of two ways, and he’s not entirely sure which one is worse. 

So without any further hesitation, he takes one quick look behind him to check that the coast is clear and takes off into a sprint in the direction of the forest of giant trees.

+++

As soon as Eren puts down the violin he’s been practicing playing for almost the whole night, the first thing that registers is a deeply uneasy feeling he has deep in the pit of his stomach, as if something is incredibly wrong and he’s yet to find out what it is.

The other, is the sound of pained, horrified screaming. 

Well, that certainly confirms his suspicions.

As if almost on instinct, Eren gets up off the chair he’d been sat on and leaves the music room with the intention of heading towards Levi’s bedroom and attempting to wake the man from a crippling nightmare he’s likely to be having, but discovers upon reaching the staircase that the sound isn’t coming from upstairs at all. It’s coming from downstairs.

Correction, it’s coming from the basement.

Suddenly, the floor feels like it’s been tilted to one side, to the point where Eren feels like he’s being forced to the ground on his knees, and every single one of Levi’s strangled screams shakes him to his very core.

He’d expected this to happen sooner or later, but he’d really hoped with every fibre of his being that he’d at least be the one to tell Levi in the end.

But it was too late for that now. Far too late.

Steeling himself for what’s to come, Eren stands himself shakily back up on to his two feet and begins making his way down towards the basement.

Every step he takes feels like lead as he forces himself down the eerily familiar steps to the place where he’d once been killed, and he almost doesn’t want to look at what’s inside as Levi’s screaming quietens down to harsh, heaving sobs.

Eren takes one final, steadying breath before approaching the doorway and takes in the devastating scene of Levi crying on the floor, staring directly down in horror at his own, horribly decaying body as it lays lifeless on the ground next to him.

As if sensing Eren’s presence, Levi immediately begins shaking and trembling all over as he searches the physically younger man’s sombre, regretful face for answers.

And at this stage, he knows he must answer every single question truthfully, even the ones he’s been dreading to hear all this time, or risk losing Levi forever.

If he hasn’t already, that is.

Levi can’t say anything for a some time, as if words are too hard to conjure up in his mind. But eventually he does manage to get them out, and when he does, Eren can’t bear to hear the hurt and betrayal that laces Levi’s voice as he hoarsely asks, 

“How long, Eren? How long have I been dead?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *giggles evil*
> 
> So...how many of you guessed that Levi is dead? And for those of you who did, when do you think he died? 
> 
> Hint: There is a BIG hint earlier on in the story!
> 
> But moving forward, what can Eren possibly say to make this better and how do you think Levi will respond to it all?
> 
> Stay Tuned!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone and welcome to chapter 6!
> 
> Apologies for the long ass wait on this one, but unfortunately due to some other updates and the fact I've also been a bit ill over the last couple weeks, this chapter took a bit longer than I'd hoped for. Hopefully, however, you're not left too disappointed and all of your questions from the last instalment will be answered!
> 
> Speaking of which, I've been so fascinated to read some of the comments - and essays in some cases! - about what you think happened to Levi. It touches me so much that many of you cared enough to go back to try and find clues! That's all a writer can really ask for, and I'd just like to thank all of you who have shown so much support on this story!
> 
> Please Enjoy!

Chapter 6

With each second that passes, Eren finds it more and more difficult to make himself look directly into Levi’s steely grey eyes. The very eyes he’d found it so unbelievably easy to fall completely in love with in such a short space of time - he often found himself getting lost in their stormy depths and how they were always hooded over just a touch - which are now filled with undeniable confusion, betrayal and despair. 

It’s everything he’d expected to happen, and yet everything he’d feared all rolled into one. 

And with Levi’s heartbroken expression and how he’s staring up at the younger man expectantly, as if he holds the key to the universe in his hands, Eren knows without any shadow of a doubt that there’s no point in prolonging the lie any longer. 

“I promise to tell you everything you want to know Levi, I swear it, you deserve to know the truth.” Eren states, both honest and wary as he continues, “But before I do, you have to understand that I had my reasons for not being upfront with you from the very start. And believe me, I did everything I could to stop this from happening…I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

“Just…” Levi snaps, more through impatience than actual annoyance, “Just tell me…please. I have to know. What happened to me, Eren? How did I end up like this? I can’t…I don’t…”

Levi seems to be desperately searching his own corpse for any hint of what could have possibly been the source of his demise, and it’s all Eren can do not to fall to his knees and wrap the other man’s tiny form up in his arms to take shield him from the sight. 

Eren had been somewhat lucky in the sense that he’d never had to lay eyes on his own body, as it had already been long buried by the time he even realised that he was no longer alive, and so can only begin to imagine what it must feel like to see yourself, rotting from the inside out with not even the slightest trace of who you once were left behind. 

Just a vessel of graying skin, congealed blood and dissolving bone. Nothing more, nothing less.

It’s not something he even wants to think about, but of course it’s now a reality for poor Levi. 

“It happened during the night, I can’t remember what time it was because I hadn’t checked but the sky was still dark outside, so it must have been late.” Eren begins, taking a deep, calming breath that he hadn’t realised could help so much even in the afterlife, “Do you remember the time your doctor came here to visit you? Hange, her name was.” 

Levi nods, it had been the only time he’d welcomed a visitor into his new home, and by the time it was over he wished he’d never entertained the idea in the first place. His house is supposed to be his safe space, and he can just about remember how cornered and afraid he’d felt after Hange had left that day. He’d been so certain that she’d be back later that night with orderlies from the hospital he’d been admitted to before, and he knows he would have done anything to stop himself being taken back there once again. 

Anything at all.

“No…” Levi breathes out, the shock and realisation apparent in his voice as Eren gives him a grave, sympathetic look.

“That night, you disappeared into your bedroom.” Eren explains, as gently as he possibly can, “I just assumed you were upset because your doctor had told you that your friends weren’t real. I’m really sorry that I listened in on your private appointment back then, but I didn’t think it would matter as I never thought for one moment that anything like this could ever happen. I thought that it would always just be me here by myself…but anyway, it hadn’t struck me as odd that you chose to stay in your room. I actually thought you’d eventually cry yourself to sleep and that would be the end of it.

But then I went to check on you at some point during the night, as I usually did since you were always having nightmares or waking up screaming and crying, and found you weren’t in your room at all. The lamps were all off and the bed was still made, but you were nowhere to be found, and then I realised that the bathroom light was on. It shone through the cracks in the door, and I knew then that’s where you must have been the entire time.”

Right at that moment, Levi isn’t sure whether or not he wants to hear the rest as he already feels like he knows where this is going. He can’t remember any of it exactly, but the more he hears, the more he feels a sense of deja vu. Like it’s all part of a book that he vaguely remembers reading or a show that he might have watched whilst already half asleep. The feeling of familiarity is there, but the details are all cloudy and incomprehensible at best. 

But he also knows that if he wants to get any sense of closure on this at all, that he has to know everything, no matter how painful it may be to hear.

He listens intently as Eren continues to relive the memory. 

“I don’t know why, but as soon as I approached the bathroom door, I knew that something wasn’t right. I can’t quite explain it, or even what it felt like, but it was as if I just had a feeling that I wasn’t going to like what I found on the other side. Levi, you have to believe me when I say that I wasn’t lying when I said that you were the most fascinating person I’d ever had the privilege of living with up until that point, and whether it be for selfish purposes or not, I didn’t want anything bad to happen to you. I couldn’t put my finger on it back then, but the more I’ve gotten to know you Levi, the more I began to realise that this was meant to be. You and me, we were always supposed to be together.”

Levi says nothing to that, just simply gives Eren a blank, empty stare. Because of course he’d thought so too, had been so sure of it in fact and even began to come to terms with the realisation that there would be no one else in the whole, wide world - living or dead - that could make him feel the way Eren does. Whether that meant condemning himself to a life of solitude with only the spirit of a suspected mass murderer to keep him company or not, he knew there would be no other way to live.

He’d fallen in love with Eren, and nothing, no one, could have made him want to leave this house for any longer than a heartbeat. 

It’s funny really, how things pan out and how one little detail can turn your whole world upside down.

“But going back to that night, I decided after a few minutes that it was time for me to go into the bathroom and see why you hadn’t come out yet. And as soon as I did, I immediately wished I’d gotten there sooner, if only I’d checked on you just a few minutes earlier, then maybe you’d still be alive right now. 

I walked in and you were just…laying there, in a pool of your own blood. The razor blade had been dropped on the floor, but it was easy to tell that’s what you’d used to slash your own wrists…you even did it the right way to ensure you’d lose enough blood to kill yourself, and I almost believed you’d succeeded until I saw you were still breathing. I tried Levi…I tried so hard to stop the bleeding and keep you conscious, I swore I wouldn’t lose you just as I was starting to learn so much more about you, but it was too late. You died in my arms not too long after…I can still remember the moment you took your last breath against my chest. It was the first thing I think I’d properly felt in around 200 years.”

Levi hadn’t thought it possible to be able to cry even after death, but sure enough there are tears spilling down his face, and the shock of them being there at all is enough to distract him from his sadness for long enough to stop him in his tracks. 

“It surprised me too.” Eren says, noticing Levi’s look of confusion at the wetness on his fingers as he wipes them from his cheeks, “There’s no such thing as pain, physically at least, but we can still cry. I guess it’s something that can help keep us human once we’re gone from the real world for good.”

Levi doesn’t respond to that particular tidbit of information, and opts instead to find out more about the day he died and every day since then. It can’t have been that long ago, but it still baffles him that Eren managed to keep such a big secret from him for all this time. 

“W-What did you do…once you knew for sure that I was dead?” Levi asks, stuttering only ever so slightly over his words and sounding surprisingly calm given the situation.

Eren rubs unconsciously at the back of his neck, “I didn’t know what to do for a long time if I’m honest. I spent hours trying to think up a plan, and even then I wasn’t sure what would work. I could have tried alerting the authorities to come and collect your body, and that’s probably what I should have done…just pretended that I was you over the phone, and planning to commit suicide, then they’d come here and find you. But ultimately, I was selfish and didn’t want anyone to take you away from me, not right away at least. For a while, I also considered just leaving you where you were, but I knew for sure that I couldn’t bear to watch you wasting away like that. Lost and forgotten. 

I eventually decided to put your body in the chest freezer outside until I could properly figure out what to do with you…but then one morning, as if some unknown force had answered my inner prayers, I heard you playing the piano in your music room.”

Eren has no idea when he’d started to cry himself, but the tiny drops that fall from his chin and it’s all he can do not to swallow around a non-existent lump in his throat as he carries on with his story.

“Several others have died here before you, and not a single one of them has ever remained behind after their death, so as soon as I saw you sitting there, your fingers dancing over the keys as you played the sweetest melody I’d ever heard…I knew you were special. I knew right then that there had to be a reason that we’d been given a chance. I was so happy that you stayed, that any plan to move you from the freezer left my head completely. 

I didn’t try communicating right away, I at least wanted you to have some time to come to terms with what happened and what that meant for you, as you were still feigning the action of ‘sleep’ and apparently having dreams like a normal human, thinking you were still alive. Those are just your brain trying to hold on to the memories and thoughts you had from your old life, they do go away eventually. 

But I hadn’t considered just how long it would take for that to happen and in the meantime, you appeared to just be wandering around the house, making noise, opening and closing things like you couldn’t find a purpose. I eventually moved you to the basement just in case you ever checked the outside freezer for some reason, and you never seemed to go down there anyway. 

Ultimately, I remembered what it had been like for me just after I died, or at least however long it took for me to realise as there was no way to gauge it back then, and I knew that it could possibly take decades before you finally settled.”

It occurs to Levi then that Eren is talking as if this has been a long, arduous experience for the both of them, but to Levi’s knowledge, it’s only been a matter of months - if even that long - since Eren made his presence known for the first time and they started talking like old friends or flirting like lovers. But if what Eren is saying is true about him being unaware of his own death and everything that happened following, then it’s possible that Levi has lost more time than he’d initially thought.

“I suppose that means I should probably ask you again…” Levi says suddenly, taking Eren slightly by surprise before asking, “How long have I been dead, Eren?”

Eren takes another long, deep sigh and appears to visibly steel himself before he eventually answers,

“It’s been five years.” 

+++

Levi spends what feels to be the next several hours in a trance of sorts, as Eren rattles through an explanation on how time passes differently for the dead, and how Levi has spent the last five years of his death essentially experiencing bursts of time that have felt relatively short but have in fact lasted far longer than he’d originally believed. 

For example, a good night’s ‘sleep’ that Levi would have normally assumed lasted maybe four or five hours, had actually consisted of him basically being locked away in his own mind for possibly four or five days at a time as he ‘dreamed’ through old thoughts and memories which created the illusion of sleep. And sometimes when he and Eren would spent afternoons in the back garden before eventually coming inside to learn some instruments together, a full day of activities could easily turn into a full week.

Seemingly, not having the need to eat or really sleep opens up a hell of a lot time for the dead.

And not only that, but due to the fact that the dead can actively choose who they show themselves to - something Levi clearly hasn’t had the time to explore as far as he knows - it seems that both he and Eren have spent the last five years constantly in eachother’s company, except that Eren had often made himself invisible so that he could observe Levi’s progress without his secret being discovered.

He can’t help but feel slightly like a lab rat, being made to do experiments with zero understanding as to why all this time, but still going through all the motions anyway and leaving himself at a massive disadvantage.

Eren also takes the time to talk about how he’d secretly used Levi’s laptop and passwords to cancel all of his standing orders except for the newspaper, Levi’s phone and essential utilities in order to keep things as normal as humanly possible until the man eventually realised something was wrong. It shocks Levi that he hadn’t clocked that the dates on his newpapers, his phone or even the fact that so many events passed by in front of his eyes and he hadn’t even noticed.

Some virus which had just started to have minor cases reported, had apparently caused the whole world to lock themselves down, killed millions of people and was eventually eradicated. There was an entire presidential election, and he hadn’t even questioned it when news reports began talking about a new leader of the country. Hell, even the crossword puzzles he likes to do on a weekend started giving hints about new music and movies that came out in the years following his death and he never even blinked an eyelid.

“It’s because you’re still new to the afterlife.” Eren explained, “The human part of your brain tries to make sense and rationalise what you already know to be true, and then everything else you blindly observe finds itself embedded somewhere in your subconscious, meaning that you don’t even question it when you come across brand new information you don’t remember ever learning. And before you ask how I know all of this, think about what I just told you.”

So, basically, Levi may not be aware of the amount of time passing him by, but whenever he picks up a newspaper, reads the title of an article on his phone, hears a new song on the radio or even sees something from the corner of his eye on the Television, he’s unknowingly been soaking it all up like a sponge so that even if he’s not consciously aware of it, he learns enough about everyday life that nothing ever seems amiss. 

It’s hard to wrap his head around, and while he’s still horribly upset with Eren lying to him in the way he did, he has still one more question that he has to know the answer to before he can decide what he wants to do next…given the very limited options he has. 

“One thing I don’t understand, is why nobody has moved into the house since I died all those years ago.” Levi states more than asks, his voice hollow and sounding tired despite lacking the need to sleep, “I know I don’t have any family or friends to speak of, but surely Hange…I would have thought she’d at least have come to collect my things if no one else could.”

Eren, to his credit, at least as the good grace to look visibly uncomfortable as he responds, “She did, Levi. I promise you she did, but…well, for obvious reasons…I had to make sure she never found out what truly happened here.”

“What the fuck did you do, Eren?” Levi asks, his voice low, and a hint of an edge audible in his tone. 

“I didn’t hurt her, if that’s what you’re thinking!” Eren says, his hands raised in surrender as he attempts to defend himself, “But I had to do something to ensure she wouldn’t come back here and also wouldn’t spend her life wondering what had happened to you. That wouldn’t have been fair, and I had a feeling that’s not what you would have wanted.”

Levi doesn’t point out that none of this is what he would have wanted, had he been given the choice. It seems rather moot to do so at this stage, all things considered.

“So, when she eventually did come here for a visit after you stopped answering her calls, I made myself visible to her and we spoke out on the driveway. I told her that I was a freelance writer who was renting the house while you were travelling abroad for an indefinite amount of time. I could tell that she didn’t buy it at first, but she also couldn’t prove I was lying and wasn’t about to force her way into the house, so after she left I ended up writing an email to her in your name, basically reiterating everything I told her while she was here. I sent it on the next day and even began making a few overseas purchases using your online banking a couple of times a month to make it appear legit on the off chance anyone started to check. 

I would have told you everything eventually, I swear, but I wanted to make sure you were ready before you were forced to find out. That’s the whole of it.”

Levi looks up at him incredulously then, “That’s the WHOLE of it? Are you shitting me right now, brat?! I’ve just sat here and listened to how you’ve lied to me for the last five years about my existence, and that’s the whole of it?! All that bullshit about how you wanted me to make something of my life instead of rotting away in this house like you did, when all this time I was turning to maggot filled mush in the fucking basement where your own father murdered you?! How could you do it, Eren? How you could lie all this time to my face?”

“I never lied about any of that Levi, I promise you! I swear on my Mom’s grave that I meant every single word of it.” Eren insists frantically, “Yes, while it’s true that you died here, were you ever REALLY living in the first place? Levi, I had never felt so alive in my whole life until the moment I met you…and all I wanted, was for you to realise that death didn’t mean the end, and that you still had so much more to live for if you really wanted it!”

“But I didn’t want that Eren!” Levi shouts back, angry tears falling down his face, “Surely the fact I committed suicide would have told you that I never had any fucking intentional of living any longer than I already had! Did that not ring some alarm bells for you?! You knew that, and yet you still kept it from me. Instead of giving me some closure, you turned me into a little pet project. So don’t even try and stand there telling me that you did all this for me! You did it for yourself!”

“Then why are you still here, Levi?!” Eren throws back at him, the hurt written all over his face as his lip trembles and hand shakes, “If I’ve been here all alone, all this time, when so many others have died and gone to wherever they wanted to go, why are you the only one that’s stayed here with me? Why are you the one who bewitched me from the moment I laid eyes on you? Face it Levi, for whatever reason, you’re supposed to be here, with me! And I think deep down you know that’s the truth.”

Levi falters for a moment, but only a moment as he comes up with an answer.

“Even if it were true…how the hell do you expect me to go on knowing that you kept all this from me for five whole years? That I spilled my guts to you, told you things that nobody else in the whole world ever knew about me, all the while you were hiding the one thing that could have meant I could maybe, finally, move on peacefully?! You know me better than anyone else ever has, Eren. More than anyone ever could. I thought I could trust you, I thought that I…I thought we could be…”

“We can Levi!” Eren encourages, striding over to where Levi sits and placing his palms on the smaller man’s heaving shoulders, “We can be together in the way we both want, nothing ever has to change! It can be just like it was before, except now there won’t have to be anymore secrets! We can stay here forever Levi, just you and me, nobody else. I promise you sweetheart, I swear it on everything I’ve ever known to be true…I love you Levi. I’ve always loved you. More than you know.”

“You betrayed me.” Levi argues, his voice no more than a whisper as he shrugs Eren off and stands up to his full height, still a good few inches shorter than the brunet man himself, “And no matter what I’ve felt for you in the five years we’ve lived together…no matter what I feel for you now…there’s nothing you can say that is going to change that.”

Eren begins to panic, this feels like the end of something and he doesn’t know what. All he knows is that he can’t let Levi go now, because if he does, he may never get another chance to make this right. 

And he can’t bear the idea of spending another 200 years in this world alone. Not now that he knows what it is to feel love. Not without Levi by his side, where he belongs.

“Please Levi…please don’t do this, don’t shut yourself away from me. Please, I can’t do this without you, love. I swear I’ll never do anything to hurt you ever again, just don’t go.”

Levi sighs, his whole body seemingly weighed down by the burden of the day as he comes to a decision in his head and straightens up to look Eren directly in the eye.

“I don’t know how I should be feeling right now.” Levi says, his voice small but determined, “And I don’t think I’ll be able to figure it out until I take some time away from you. I can’t deny that since I met you, you’ve made me so happy, Eren. I never knew that I would have to die in order to find a reason to live, but look at us! I know that what I feel for you is stronger than any anger and upset I may be feeling right now…but I still need time before I can fully forgive you for what you’ve done. And for that I’m sorry, but you’ll have to be by yourself for a while…i don’t know how long, but it won’t be forever. That’s the best I can do right now.”

Eren begins to rapidly shake his head from side to side as the tears begin to flow even heavier this time, he can barely make out the features of Levi’s beautiful face as he tries to commit it to memory.

“Please…don’t leave me…”

“Goodbye Eren.”

And just like that, Levi disappears from view like a feather in the wind, like dust on Eren’s fingers…and he’s left with nothing except the lifeless husk of what used to be Levi on the floor at his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, now that Levi has gone away to take some time for himself without Eren, how long do you think it will be before he makes an appearance again? And will he ever be able to fully forgive Eren?
> 
> Let me know what you think, as next chapter will unfortunately be the last for this story! 
> 
> Also, for updates, please feel free to follow my Twitter @JupiterRose14
> 
> Stay Tuned!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone and welcome to chapter 7!!
> 
> This is the final chapter of this fic, and the conclusion to this particular story. I hope you have all enjoyed so far and will continue to do so straight through until the very end. It may not be the ending that everyone had been expecting, but out of the several I had in mind, I felt that this one was the most fitting.
> 
> Thank you to all of you who have supported this fic and provided me with some much needed feedback from the very beginning. I hope you know while I may not have been able to reply to all of you directly, I appreciate each and every one of you more than you know.
> 
> In order to enjoy this particular chapter, I would hope that you will listen along to the fic's namesake song, "To build a home" by The Cinematic Orchestra. This, of course, isn't mandatory!
> 
> Please Enjoy!

Chapter 7

‘My Dearest Levi,

I know you probably don’t wish to hear from me right now, but after mulling it over for some time, I thought I should at least try and connect with you in some way so that you’re not left entirely alone at this difficult time.

Since I last saw you more than a week ago, I have done nothing at all except try and remember every single detail of your beautiful face down to the very last freckle. As you know, I’ve never been one for drawing or artistry in general, but I’ve taken up sketching to try and pass some of the long days and nights away. I’ve attached one of my latest sketches under this note. Maybe let me know what you think?

Just so you know, I moved your body back to the freezer for now. At least until you decide what you want to do about it. I didn’t want to just leave you in the basement again, it wouldn’t feel right now that you know and it would have been far too traumatising to let you do it alone. I hope you don’t mind. 

I miss you, Levi. I miss you so much that it hurts, but I know you need this for yourself and that’s okay.

I’ll wait for you. For however long it takes. 

I love you.

I’m sorry,

Eren’

+++

‘To my perfect Levi, 

How are you, my love? I miss you.

What have you been up to recently? I myself have been practicing the violin again, trying and failing to learn that song you were teaching me before. You’ve probably heard yourself how bad I am at remembering the notes, I always do far better with you there to guide me. 

I know I say it all the time, but honestly, writing these notes to you has been the highlight of my day and it almost feels as if I can really talk to you again. Even if you never reply, I always know when you’ve seen my letter once it disappears from the refrigerator. 

I often wonder what you do with them. Do you throw them in the trash? Burn them? I do at least hope you read them first. How many has it been now anyway? It’s been well over a month now hasn’t it? So at least 30 I’d say. 

In any other situation, I would have most likely lost track of the days by now. Would have skipped straight through them like they were meaningless. But not anymore, not when each day could be the day you finally return to me. 

You will return to me, right? One day?

Until then, you have my heart. Or whatever is left of it, at least. 

All my love,

Eren’

+++

‘To Levi, the love of my life and death,

As always, I hope you’re having a wonderful day, my angel. It’s so nice outside, I would like to think you went to sit out in the sun for a while like we used to. You always enjoyed the sun, even if you complained about it being too obnoxiously bright and starting to burn your retinas out.

It’s days like this were I sometimes wish you hadn’t been so camera shy while you were alive, so then I could at least have a picture of you when I type your name into Google instead of just a Wikipedia page. I may or may not have edited it for fun to say that you were voted sexiest man alive…which is a little morbid now that I think about it, but even so, it’s still true to me!

There’s also a playlist on YouTube that’s compiled an entire list of your musical works, and I’ve been listening to it non-stop since I found it. I can almost imagine you playing each one of the instruments in turn, it’s so undeniably you. I miss that Levi, seeing you play, watching your hands as they work, the way you bite your lip when you concentrate or how you close your eyes when you lose yourself in the music. 

It’s a breathtaking sight, believe me. One that I hope I will get the chance to see again soon.

Did you know it’s been a whole year now since we last talked? I almost couldn’t believe my own eyes when I saw the calendar, but it’s true. 

It could take a million more years for you to decide to forgive me, and I’d still be right here waiting for you, Levi.

I’ll never stop. I promise.

Eren’

+++

‘My Sweet Levi,

I hope you’re alright. I would have written to you first thing this morning as usual, but I had a little bit of trouble figuring out what to say to you today.

I couldn’t help but notice that Hange came to the house last night.

I was wondering if you’d contacted her in some way to ask her to drop by? She didn’t come in, but I also didn’t want to show myself in case you had told her to. I don’t want to do anything that could possibly mess up your plans, not after I’ve caused you so much pain already. 

The laptop is finally busted. I knew it was coming, the thing must be at least 8 years old now, but it means that I can’t listen to your lovely music anymore. You still have your phone, right? I’m just concerned that when it stops working, you won’t have any other way to stay connected to the outside world anymore. The TV is already on it’s last legs, it’ll only be a matter of time before that breaks too.

I’ve also run out of paper, so I’m sorry for having to write my letters to you on the refrigerator instead. I know the clean freak in you will be cursing me to hell and back by now, but I promise to wash the ink off at the end of every day so you won’t have to. Even though I know you probably will anyway, as that’s just who you are. 

I wish I knew what you were thinking right now, love. It’s already been so long since I last saw your face or heard your voice, that sometimes I think i’ve forgotten them entirely, until I see, hear or feel something that reminds me of you and then it’s like I can envision you so clearly. And suddenly, 3 years doesn’t seem like such a long time anymore. 

But of course, it is a long time. If I’m honest, these last 3 years without you have felt longer than any time I spent alone before now. I’ll still wait for you though.

I always will.

Eren’

+++

‘My Beautiful Levi,

Hi Sweetheart, I know that my note is early today but I just couldn’t wait any longer. I’ve already been climbing the walls for hours now as it is.

As you know, the police arrived last night and started doing a full search of the house. It shocked me to see them after not laying eyes on another person in so long, and I almost showed myself to them in panic after they started manhandling your things. One of those idiots was fiddling with your harp so much that it nearly fell over on it’s side, and I ended up knocking over a whole pile of books just to divert his attention.

The guy jumped out of his skin, but it was worth it as he soon stopped touching what didn’t belong to him.

They found your body, of course. Seemed to know exactly where to find it in fact, and I can only assume that means that you did something to make your whereabouts known to them. I couldn’t stop them from taking you away no matter how desperate I was to do so. I wanted to tell them to leave you alone, that you belonged here with me and that they had no right to take you away from me.

But deep down, I knew that it’s what you wanted, and that I had no choice but to let you go.

I came to a realisation last night, you know? Despite how much I’ve hated my father for everything he did when he was alive, for ending my life and the lives of my innocent friends…I honestly don’t think I can blame him for it anymore. And I never thought I’d say this, but I think I have forgiven him. When all is said and done, he just wanted to have my Mom back, because he loved her with every fibre of his being, and he would have done anything possible to keep her with him for as long as he could, even if it meant killing those who stood in his way.

That’s how I feel about you, Levi. I would burn the whole world if it meant that I got to have you back for even just a second longer. 

You are still here, aren’t you? 

I hope you are. I’m still waiting.

I still love you.

I’m still sorry.

Eren’

+++

‘To My Eternal Love,

It’s now been 15 years exactly since we became roommates Levi, can you believe it? 

It feels like it was just yesterday, but also a lifetime ago, all rolled into one. It’s strange how time works like that. Or maybe it’s just me who feels that way. Maybe you don’t miss me at all. Maybe you’re not even here anymore. Maybe I’ve been talking to dead air since you were taken away all those years ago. 

I guess I have no way of knowing, huh? The dust has been building up for a long time now, seeing as the cleaning products are all long gone. Possibly also because you haven’t been here to get rid of it either.

Hange still comes by every year to leave flowers on the doorstep on your birthday, so I’ve decided that as long as she believes that your soul still rests here, then I can’t lose hope. She cries each time she visits, and I’ve been more than a little bit tempted to try letting her know once and for all that this wasn’t her fault. But seeing as she likely thinks I murdered you, it’s probably not the best idea I’ve ever had. 

I’ve also began to run out of pens and ink to write to you with, so I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to continue with this for. I’m shocked that the attic had this many art supplies to begin with, so I guess I shouldn’t be ungrateful for the time I’ve been able to ensure you start each day with a letter. If I still had blood in my veins, I have no doubt that I would have started to use that when the time came, I wonder if that’s where the stereotype of haunted houses having messages written in blood came from? 

I would even consider carving my letters into the walls if it meant you got to read them, although that would probably put any prospective buyers off purchasing this house forever. Then again, that ‘For Sale’ sign has been outside for so long now, who would even know? 

I wish YOU would give me a sign, Levi. Anything at all to tell me that you haven’t gone for good. Something to show me that there’s still hope for us when all is said and done.

I wasn’t lying when I said I would wait an eternity for you, but even so, I can’t help but miss you more and more each day. 

Until we meet again,

Eren’

+++

‘To my soulmate Levi,

My darling, my sweetheart, my everything,

I have to tell you now before I lose my nerve, but this will most likely be my very last letter to you until I can find a way of creating some form of ink on my own. I’m on the very last piece of charcoal, and I know it won’t last forever so I have to say everything I want to now in case I don’t get another chance. 

I would like to apologise in advance for anything else that gets dirty if I run out of space to write.

I know you probably won’t believe it, but I managed to dream last night for the very first time in centuries. I had almost forgotten what it felt like to dream at all, it was so surreal.

I dreamt of you, Levi. I always knew that would be the case if I was ever able to dream again. My head is filled with you, and now you’ve made your way into what’s left of my subconscious also. Not that I mind that at all, I’ve been telling you for years now that my everything belongs to you. You’ve made your path into my soul in a way that no one ever has, and if you were to split me open, there’d be no way of telling what’s mine and what’s yours as they’re all one in the same now.

I dreamt of the first time I held you in my arms. It wasn’t the day you died, as you may think, but in fact the night before. You had fallen asleep on the couch after watching TV, and I was worried because you had your appointment with Hange the next day and I didn’t want your neck to hurt. So I bundled you up and carefully carried you up the stairs to the bedroom. You were alive back then, and I could have easily revealed myself you by accident, but it didn’t matter to me. All I cared about was that you were comfortable and ready to face the world the very next morning. I probably should have realised then that you were different from the rest, but it’ll be no surprise to you that I’ve always been rather slow on the uptake at times.

I also dreamt of the moment we kissed for the very first time, out in the backyard, after you’d told me all about the ocean and we discovered our connection through Mikasa. I think that was the very moment I realised that my feelings for you went so much deeper than any love I thought I’d felt for you up until that point.

That’s when I first realised that we were soulmates, Levi. Trapped two awful centuries apart and destined to live shitty lives until we could finally come together in death. 

I don’t believe it to be any accident that you were born on the anniversary of my death, or that I was once engaged to your direct ancestor, or that out of all the places you could have possibly moved to in the world, you chose to come here. I don’t think it was a co-incidence that you happened to be the only person to stay here with me after you died. I can’t believe that you being able to smell dead, rotting bodies for the better part of your entire life was only by chance either…I think that you could smell the corpses of the people that I had once supposedly killed in that basement, and I believe that it only ever got worse the further away you stayed from me.

This house called to you Levi…I called to you. Even if I didn’t know it yet.

I hope you don’t mind me telling you this now, Levi…but I also dreamt of the time when I accidentally walked in on you touching yourself in my bed. I hadn’t meant to look, but I overheard you moaning and whimpering, and thought your brain was showing you nightmares again. It had happened a few times before, and on those occasions you wouldn’t calm down until I came and lay by your side. 

But this time when I went to your room, you were naked and sprawled across the bed in a way I had never seen before. Your hand was on your cock, stroking and caressing, and you had two fingers inside yourself, sliding in and out. It was singlehandedly the most erotic thing I’d ever witnessed in my life or in my death. That is, until you’d pulled a toy out of your nightstand and began to use it…i swear I almost lost myself as soon it as started buzzing, and you whispered out my name like a prayer. 

I swore I’d never tell you this, but I couldn’t help myself at the time. I knew you were too far gone to notice my presence, but after a while, I held on to the end of the toy and began to work it inside of you as you cried out in pleasure. You were so aroused and desperate for relief, and I wanted to be the one that made you come in the end. It felt so much like I was making love to you that I wished you somehow knew I was there, and that I had been the one making you feel so good. Your skin had such a lovely blush, and you kept running your hands over your body and the sheets below as if you didn’t know what to do with them. 

As soon as you finished, it took me only seconds to follow along with you. You were just so beautiful that I couldn’t stop it from happening. 

I’m sorry if that makes you uncomfortable now, that’s not what I had intended at the time, but I also wanted to be honest with you while I still can. 

Finally, I dreamt of the time when you took all of the spare sheets from the bedrooms and showed me how to make a fort in the living room. Do you remember that time, Levi?

You probably hadn’t known then, but we spent almost a month in that fort alone together. 

Whenever I think back to that time, I think of you calling me a brat and telling me that I wasn’t tying the sheets correctly and making a mess. I think of you ruffling my hair affectionately after I sat down and watched you do it the right way. I think of us watching movies together as we lay against the pillows we’d propped up against the couch to see better. I think of how we spent countless hours talking each day about our lives and who we were before we found each other, and how I heard you properly laugh out loud for the first time. I remember you resting your head against my shoulder, and taking my hand in yours as we simply breathed each other in. I think of you looking up into my eyes and telling me that for an insufferable idiot, I was making it hard not to fall in love with me.

I think about your soft lips against mine, and how you’d pressed me to the ground so that you could straddle my hips and kiss me like the world was going to end. I could have spent days kissing you then Levi, and honestly I probably did. 

I still can’t remember how we ended up naked in each other’s arms after kissing for so long, but somehow we did, and it was incredible. Feeling the touch of your bare skin, every little bump and ridge…it was enough to make me feel as if I was hallucinating. For there was no way on Earth that I’d been lucky enough to find something so perfect in this cruel world, and be holding them close to my heart as they touched me in ways I had never experienced before in my whole existence.

I don’t even know how to begin to describe the euphoria I felt when you took me inside your gorgeous, willing body, or how much I had to hold myself back from promising you the world as we made love. I can still feel your breath on my neck as you gasped in pleasure, or how you dug your nails into my shoulders as I thrust into you faster and faster as we neared the end, or the way you whispered in my ear that you loved me as we came down from our highs together.

In that moment, I felt complete. I felt as if I could fly and that nothing could ever bring me down again.

I would do anything to kiss you just one more time, Levi, to make love to you again. I would hold you like the world was definitely going to end and I wouldn’t let go. In fact, if I had known that time would be the last time I would ever get to touch you…I know that I never would have stopped. Not ever.

There is so much more that I could say to you Levi…and while I wish I didn’t have to, for now I do have to let you go. But just know, that for as long as I exist on this Earth, I will be waiting for you to come back to me.

Because I love you Levi.

I’m always going to love you…until the end of time, and beyond. 

We built this home together, two misfits in love. I don’t know how we did it, but we did. 

But now, I need you to come back so that we can live in it together. 

Please come back.

Eternally yours,

Eren’

+++

The next morning after writing his final letter to Levi, Eren spends the better part of an hour searching for his charcoal before he realises that he’s already finished it all and that there would be no more writing for the foreseeable future. 

No more letters. No more pouring his heart out to Levi. No more way of contacting his beloved aside from shouting Levi’s name at the very top of his lungs until the other man was essentially bullied into showing himself just to tell Eren to shut the hell up. 

It wouldn’t be the ideal way of reconnecting with the man he loves after spending over 12 years apart, but honestly, if it got Levi talking to him at all then Eren can at least see the appeal. Still, he’s not willing to do that just yet, maybe after the next 12 years have passed he may reconsider it.

It’s a dire thought when he lets himself think about it for too long, that Levi may take decades or even centuries before he decides to ever talk to him again, and that’s provided only if he even wants anything to do with Eren after all that time has passed. 

In theory, they could easily both live in this house like passing ships in the night for all eternity. Have been doing so for this long already.

Without having to spend the time writing out a letter to Levi, Eren finds himself at a bit of a loss on what to do for the day. He hasn’t been able to watch any TV since it gave out several years ago and some people came by to take all of Levi’s instruments away pretty much as soon as they’d found his body.

The only thing left behind was the Grand Piano, presumably because it was too big to move and the real estate agents who come by every now and then trying to sell the house want the place to have some “character” in an effort to get some moron to buy it.

Fat chance of that happening considering Levi’s ‘murderer’ disappeared in the exact same way the original mysterious killer had done so many years prior. 

Eren tries not to take it too personally that he’s been accused of murder in two different centuries now, but he can’t help but think it really does say something about him as an individual. Sure, Hange had only given a quick description of the man who’d claimed to be living as a tenant in Levi’s home whilst Levi himself was “travelling”, but it was still undeniably him when the press release finally went out on the news. 

Almost as a force of habit, Eren soon enough finds himself in the kitchen next to refrigerator as he always did first thing in the morning for the last 12 years, only to discover that instead of the entirely blank space he’d been expecting to see, the whole thing is now covered from top to bottom in letters.

Not just any letters in fact, but the letters that Eren had written out to Levi himself back when he still had paper at his disposal.

For a moment he can do nothing but blink until the realisation finally kicks in.

Levi hadn’t gotten rid of his letters…he’d kept them. And most importantly, he’d stuck them on to the refrigerator for Eren to see, just like he’d done every single morning for Levi.

Levi.

Levi never left. 

Levi is still here.

He’s always been here…in their home.

As soon as Eren can feel the telltale sting of tears that spring to his eyes and sobs that threaten to leave the back of his throat, he lifts a shaky hand to the countless pieces of paper just to make sure that they’re real and that he’s not simply imagining that Levi has finally chosen to reach out to him by leaving this clear sign for him to find. 

Eren runs the very tips of his fingers over the old, dry ink and the edges of each worn page in a way that he knows would have left numerous paper cuts if he were still alive, and that’s when the tears really do begin to fall. He follows the droplets with his gaze and notes that they land on more of his letters that appear to have been purposefully scattered all over the floor. 

In fact, the more he looks around, the more he begins to realise that the letters haven’t simply been thrown to the ground haphazardly…they’re creating a path that leads out of the kitchen and carries on straight up the stairs. 

Eren keenly follows the trail of letters, slowly and steadily, for as long as he can until they take him directly outside of the music room, where the path finally comes to an end. 

He doesn’t need to go any further to know what waits for him on the other side…he can already hear the enchanting sound of Levi playing his piano, just like he had done when he’d appeared to Eren that fateful day after his death…performing that exact same melody that Eren knew he could never forget for the rest of his days, however many or few they may be.

For reasons completely unbeknownst to him, Eren doesn’t enter the room straight away. Instead, he spends a good few minutes wiping at his face to try and stop himself from crying uncontrollably, whilst using the rest of his remaining energy in an attempt at staying upright. His knees are so shaky for some reason, he feels like he could collapse. 

For once, he feels truly human all over again.

Once he’s composed himself for long enough to calm himself down, Eren places a gentle palm on the heavy, wooden door and pushes it open to reveal a sight that he’d thought only existed in his ‘dreams’.

Levi, looking even more beautiful than Eren remembered, pays him no mind as he concentrates solely on the monochromatic keys in front of him, letting his fingers fly over them as if he’s played this piece enough that his body now knows it off by heart. And given the time they’ve spent apart, it’s very likely that could be the case.

Eren simply says nothing at all, allowing himself to get lost in the notes as Levi plays them one by one in a beautiful symphony that feels as if it’s telling the story of their love. A slow, melancholic beginning which gradually begins to build and build into something spectacular, before falling once again into a lonely, haunting piece that sends shivers up his spine, until eventually the melody turns into something softer and far more romantic that seems to carry on forever. That is, until Levi draws out the final notes and the music starts to fade before coming to an end entirely.

Eren doesn’t realise he’s smiling like an idiot until Levi finally looks up to meet his stare head on.

“Hey there, Shitty Brat.” Levi greets him, in what feels like the first time in forever.

Eren’s heart positively flutters at the sound of the old nickname as it leaves Levi’s lips, and he can’t stop the incredibly childlike giggle that bubbles up inside him from coming out.

“Hi Levi” Eren responds, becoming shy all of a sudden, despite everything they’ve been through, “Welcome home.”

Levi shakes his head then, and gives him a very firm “No” that pierces Eren like a knife, as he stands up from his seat at the piano and folds his arms in front of him. This is not exactly how he’d expected their eventual reconciliation to go. Then again, around 80% of him wasn’t even sure that Levi would ever want to see him again after all this time, so there’s that.

However, before Eren can say anything at all to question what he means, Levi has already made his way over to where the physically younger man is standing self consciously and grabs his face in both hands, before pulling Eren down to meet him in a fierce but lovingly tender kiss.

Eren allows himself to get lost in the sensation of Levi’s mouth dancing against his, something he’s fantasised about on more occasions than he could even begin to count, and suddenly nothing else matters anymore. He has Levi back, and that’s the only thing he’s ever wanted since he’d lost him in the first place. 

And if that means they have to get through a number of difficult conversations before they can finally get back to normal, then Eren would happily sit through each and every one of them as long as it meant Levi would stay in the end.

When Levi reluctantly pulls back from the kiss - Eren could have let it go on for years, and immediately plans to as soon as Levi says whatever he needs to say - he gazes up at Eren with a look of such love and adoration that the brunet thinks he may truly be dreaming all over again. This is more than he could have ever asked for, and somehow it’s already even better than he’d imagined it would be. 

“Now I’m home.” Levi insists, giving Eren a rare smile before continuing, “And I have no intentions of ever leaving again. 

Levi.

His Levi is back here in his arms where he belongs, where he’s always belonged, and Eren doesn’t know what he’s done in either life or death to deserve him.

“You kept my letters.” Eren says, his grin wide and dorky, but he can’t even begin to make himself care about how dumb he no doubt looks. 

Luckily, Levi doesn’t seem to care as he responds without a moment’s hesitation, “Every single one.”

“I’ve missed you so much Levi.” Eren admits honestly, “I was beginning to think I was never going to see you again.”

Levi gives him a rather sad, guilty look then. 

“I’ve missed you too Eren, more than you know. And I’m so fucking sorry that I stayed away for so damn long. You know, I kept on thinking to myself that each day would be the day that I would finally show myself to you and we could be together again…but for some reason, I kept coming up with reasons and excuses to put it off just a little bit longer. I convinced myself I wasn’t ready and shit, or that if I did it too soon, I could begin to resent you over time and would end up losing you forever. I told myself that I had to make the decision I believed I would regret the least. But in all honesty, I think I was just scared.”

Eren nods in understanding and traces the soft skin of Levi’s cheek with his fingers, “I know what you mean, sweetheart. I spent each and every day from the moment you left hoping and praying that you’d come back to me. But at the same time, the very idea of it actually happening terrified me too. I think that’s why I kept writing to you the whole time you were gone, mainly because I wanted to feel that you were still with me, but also because I felt like if I laid myself out to you before you came back…then maybe you’d be sure that you were making the right decision. Probably sounds stupid now.”

Levi shakes his head, “It’s not stupid, brat. I think it’s just human nature to want to be sure about things before we go through with anything. It’s why I led the police straight to my body all those years ago. I had to make sure that I was here because I was supposed to be, and not just because it happened to be where my body was lain to rest. I realised that if they physically took me away and somehow I was still here, then I must be exactly where I’m supposed to be. But even then I still wasn’t brave enough to face you. 

Because it was only when you wrote that last letter yesterday morning, that I realised that I was going to lose you anyway if I kept on wimping out. Knowing that there was going to be no more gave me the push I needed to stop making excuses and let you see me again. I’m just sorry that I wasted so much time that we could have been spending together. That’s time we’ll never get back.”

Eren smiles down at Levi in that very moment and uses two fingers to raise his chin so that they’re looking directly into each other’s eyes.

“Levi, my love, we have all the time in the world.”

And for once, they do.

They really, truly do. 

Now that they’re back in each other’s arms, there is nothing in the world that could ever make them leave the home they built with each other. The one that they tore to the ground as they broke down each other’s walls and re-made together. 

Not even as the ‘For Sale’ sign outside is replaced with one that says, ‘Sold’.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all folks!!
> 
> Once again, thank you all so much for joining me on this amazing storytelling journey and I hope you all enjoyed from start to finish.
> 
> Please feel free to tell me what you think and let me know if it was what you were expecting.
> 
> Thank you all xx


End file.
